NOTE 64, p. 272.—Reference is here made to the so-called “indirect claims” which the United States Government insisted on having considered by the Arbitrators, but which the English as strenuously refused to submit. The claim was in substance that the “Alabama” and other cruisers had not only directly destroyed much of our commerce, but had indirectly prolonged the war, and that for this prolongation the United States should be paid. Though this doctrine was presented in the so-called “American Case,” which, as Beaconsfield amusingly says, was translated into all languages and sent into all European courts, it was not formally objected to until the Arbitrators met at Geneva. The question there seemed likely to bring arbitration abruptly to an end. But finally the Arbitrators, in an informal manner, declared that “in case the indirect claims _should_ come before them, they should be obliged to reject them,” whereupon the Americans said that all they insisted on was a _decision_, not necessarily a decision in their favor. The difficult question thus happily disposed of, other matters were settled with substantial unanimity. NOTE 65, p. 275.—It is not difficult to understand the great influence of passages like this in stirring the national feeling of Great Britain. Lord Beaconsfield knew how to move the British heart as no other modern statesman except Palmerston has done. NOTE 66, p. 288.—In 1879 the people of England were confronted with problems which a long succession of good harvests had caused them to forget. The failure of four successive crops had brought about unexampled distress. The cry for protection was revived, and in the spring of 1879 was brought in various forms before Parliament. Lord Beaconsfield, the Prime-Minister, in a succession of quite remarkable speeches, took the ground that “the country had settled the question in another generation,” and that the distress was not to be relieved by a return to the former policy. Among other interesting things shown by the Prime-Minister, was the fact that the loss to the nation from bad harvests had been in four years not less than about 80,000,000 pounds sterling.—Beaconsfield’s “Speeches,” i., 327.