Page:Paul Samuel Reinsch - Secret Diplomacy, How Far Can It Be Eliminated? - 1922.djvu/164

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ed at that time implied (1) Full power of negotiation in the President, (2) Taking counsel with the Senate, (3) Formal ratification of treaties by the Senate, and publication thereof as parts of the law of the land. The system has been highly praised by European publicists as reconciling the mainte- nance of confidential relations with publicity of the results, in that treaties are given the charac- ter of laws.

In the course of the nineteenth century there occurred many instances resulting in a growing practice of making special agreements by the Sec- retary of State alone, without the advice and con- sent of the Senate. When President Roosevelt in 1905 attempted to deal with the Dominican sit- uation in this manner, the Senate objected and in- sisted that all international agreements of any kind must be submitted to its action. The sys- tem of the United States, however, actually per- mits of the current conduct of foreign affairs without information to the people or even without constant and complete information to the Senate which is, moreover, usually preoccupied with mat- ters of internal legislation.

In England, the mother of Parliaments, we might expect that there should have been a con- stant effort at parliamentary control of foreign