The reply evoked from the British government by this strong statement was firm and clear.  The Monroe Doctrine, it said, even if not so widely stretched by interpretation, was not binding in international law; the dispute with Venezuela was a matter of interest merely to the parties involved; and arbitration of the question was impossible.  This response called forth President Cleveland’s startling message of 1895.  He asked Congress to create a commission authorized to ascertain by researches the true boundary between Venezuela and British Guiana.  He added that it would be the duty of this country “to resist by every means in its power, as a willful aggression upon its rights and interests, the appropriation by Great Britain of any lands or the exercise of governmental jurisdiction over any territory which, after investigation, we have determined of right belongs to Venezuela.”  The serious character of this statement he thoroughly understood.  He declared that he was conscious of his responsibilities, intimating that war, much as it was to be deplored, was not comparable to “a supine submission to wrong and injustice and the consequent loss of national self-respect and honor.”

[Illustration:  GROVER CLEVELAND]

The note of defiance which ran through this message, greeted by shrill cries of enthusiasm in many circles, was viewed in other quarters as a portent of war.  Responsible newspapers in both countries spoke of an armed settlement of the dispute as inevitable.  Congress created the commission and appropriated money for the investigation; a body of learned men was appointed to determine the merits of the conflicting boundary claims.  The British government, deaf to the clamor of the bellicose section of the London press, deplored the incident, courteously replied in the affirmative to a request for assistance in the search for evidence, and finally agreed to the proposition that the issue be submitted to arbitration.  The outcome of this somewhat perilous dispute contributed not a little to Cleveland’s reputation as “a sterling representative of the true American spirit.”  This was not diminished when the tribunal of arbitration found that Great Britain was on the whole right in her territorial claims against Venezuela.

=The Annexation of Hawaii.=—­While engaged in the dangerous Venezuela controversy, President Cleveland was compelled by a strange turn in events to consider the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands in the mid-Pacific.  For more than half a century American missionaries had been active in converting the natives to the Christian faith and enterprising American business men had been developing the fertile sugar plantations.  Both the Department of State and the Navy Department were fully conscious of the strategic relation of the islands to the growth of sea power and watched with anxiety any developments likely to bring them under some other Dominion.