CHAP. Vv] TREATY RELATIONS 1131 
representative at Tokio an expression of regret for the 
excesses which had occurred. 
The principles guiding the matter were formally laid down 
by the Imperial Government both in Lord Ripon’s dispatch 
of June 28, 18952 regarding the conclusion of commercial 
treaties and in the correspondence with the Governments of 
the Commonwealth of Australia and of the State of South 
Australia which arose out of the Vondel incident? It is in 
that dispatch emphasized that the responsibility in these 
matters rests with the Imperial Government in the long run, 
but that the Imperial Government is entitled to look to the 
Dominion Government for the carrying out faithfully of all 
treaty and other foreign obligations. As a matter of fact, 
the Imperial Government retains no direct control over a 
Dominion Government, however much the actions of that 
Government might affect foreign relations. The Imperial 
Government recognized to the full this position when they 
granted responsible government ; they felt that it must be 
assumed that a community that was fit to manage its own 
internal affairs could be trusted to carry out an obligation 
which, as part of the Empire, it had towards foreign countries 
under treaty or under the general principles of international 
law. For example, in the case of the riots at Vancouver the 
obligations to Japan might be held to arise not merely under 
the ordinary international law, but also under the Treaty 
of 1894 accepted by Canada under a special arrangement in 
1906, while the obligations to China rested only on the ordinary 
international law. But both cases were treated precisely 
! Canadian Annual Review, 1907, p- 391. For Higinbotham’s exaggerated 
view of the Imperial responsibility, cf. Morris, Memoir, pp. 204-9, 219, 220. 
* Parl. Pap., C. 7824. 
* Parl. Pap., Cd. 1587, p. 14. See also Sir G. Reid in Commonwealth 
Parliamentary Debates, 1908-9, p. 853. 
¢ Cf. Sir Wilfrid Laurier's eloquent assertion in the Canadian House of 
Commons on March 7, 1911, of the duty of Canada to approve the recipro- 
city arrangement by legislating as contemplated therein as in accordance 
with its national honour, in view of the understanding with President Taft, 
loyally carried out on his part by convening a special session of the Congress 
of the United States.