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species, in order that "temporary and immoral gain" might be acquired by a few persons. "The law of the sea," continued Mr. Blaine, "is not lawlessness." One step beyond the protection of acts which were immoral in themselves and which inevitably tended to results against the interests and welfare of mankind, and piracy would find its justification. The forcible resistance to which the United States was constrained in Behring Sea was, declared Mr. Blaine, in the President's judgment, "demanded not only by the necessity of defending the traditional and long-established rights of the United States, but also the rights of good government and of good morals the world over." The President was persuaded that "all friendly nations" would "concede to the United States the same rights and privileges on the lands and in the waters of Alaska which the same friendly nations always conceded to the Empire of Russia."

Negotiations at
Washington.

During the months of March and April 1890 several conferences were held at Washington between Mr. Blaine, M. De Struve, the Russian minister; Sir Julian Pauncefote, and Mr. Charles H. Tupper, minister of marine and fisheries of Canada, on the subject of a joint arrangement, but no agreement was reached. On the 1st of March Mr. Blaine communicated to Sir Julian Pauncefote "a large mass of evidence" to show that "the killing of seals in the open sea tends certainly and rapidly to the extermination of the species." On the 9th of March Sir Julian communicated to Mr. Blaine in reply a memorandum prepared by Mr. Tupper, to which was appended a note by Mr. George M. Dawson, assistant director of the geological survey of Canada. In this memorandum it was maintained that, while the indiscriminate slaughter of seals on the rookeries was most injurious to seal life, no instance could be found where a rookery had ever been destroyed, depleted, or even injured by the killing of seals at sea only; and it was also maintained that, though Mr. Blaine had contended that the seals in the waters of Behring Sea were undisturbed until 1886, "extraordinary slaughter" occurred there prior to 1870, and that pelagic sealing had since been carried on without interference till the seizures were made in 1886. In support of this asseveration various reports of agents of the United States from 1870 to 1886

1 Mr. Blaine to Sir Julian Pauncefote, January 22, 1890, For. Rel. 1890, 366-370.

were cited. The memorandum contended that little danger was to be apprehended from pelagic sealing.1

a Commission of Experts and a Modus Vivendi.

On the 29th of April 1890 Sir Julian PaunceSir Julian Paunce- fote, in response to an invitation from Mr. fote's Proposal of Blaine to submit a counter proposal to that made by the United States two years previ ously, presented to the latter a draft of a convention between Great Britain, Russia, and the United States, in relation to the fur-seal fishery in Behring Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk, and the adjacent waters. In view of the fact that there was a difference of opinion as to the measures required for the protection of the fur seals, the draft proposed the appointment of a mixed commission of experts, who should, within two years from the date of the convention, investigate and report upon the questions: (1) Whether regulations properly enforced on the various breeding islands and the territorial waters surrounding them were sufficient for the preservation of the fur-seal species? (2) If not, how far from the islands was it necessary that such regulations should be enforced? (3) What such regulations should in either case provide? (4) If a close season was required on the breeding islands and territorial waters, what months should it embrace? (5) If a close season was necessary outside of the breeding islands as well, what extent of waters and what period or periods should it cover? In case the contracting parties should, after receiving the commissioners' report or reports, be unable to agree on regulations, it was proposed to refer the questions in difference to the arbitration of an impartial government. It was further proposed that, pending the report of the commission, and for six months after its date, the contracting parties should put in force certain provisional regulations. The substance of these provisional regulations was that a line, to be called the "Seal fishery line," should be drawn from Point Anival, in the Sea of Okhotsk, to the point of intersection of the fiftieth parallel of north latitude with the one hundred and sixtieth meridian of longitude east from Greenwich, thence eastward along the fiftieth parallel to its point of intersection with the one hundred and sixtieth meridian of longitude west from Greenwich; that the citizens and subjects of the contracting parties should be prohibited from taking seals by land or sea north of that line from the 1st of May to the 30th of June,

For. Rel. 1890, 382–107.

and from the 1st of October to the 30th of December; that, during the intervening period, in order to prevent the raiding of the breeding islands, vessels engaged in the fur-seal fishery should be prohibited from approaching such islands within a radius of ten miles; that vessels found engaged in the fur-seal fishery contrary to the prohibitions of the convention should be liable to confiscation, and their masters and crews to fine and imprisonment; that every offending vessel or person might be seized and detained by the naval or other duly commissioned officers of any of the high contracting parties, but that they should be handed over as soon as practicable to the authorities of the nation to which they respectively belonged, for trial and punishment.'

Rejection of the
Proposal.

On the 11th of May Sir Julian Pauncefote, after an interview with Mr. Blaine, reported to his government that the latter would within a week send a communication in which he would explain why the United States could not accept the draft in its original form, though he thought a basis of arrangement was offered by the proposal. On the 22d of May, however, a statement appeared in the newspapers to the effect that it had been decided at a meeting of the Cabinet to reject the proposal, and that instructions had been issued to the United States revenue cutter Bear to arrest pelagic sealers in Behring Sea. Sir Julian Pauncefote personally remonstrated against the publication of the statement in the press before any response had been made to the pending proposal and against the issuance of such instructions while negotiations were in progress. Mr. Blaine did not deny the truth of the statement, but replied that the press could not be controlled; that an answer to the proposal had been delayed in order to return a joint reply with Russia, and that the draft convention was quite inadequate to the necessities of the case. He especially protested against that part of the draft which contemplated the prescription of regulations on land, and explained that his former expression of opinion that the draft offered a basis of negotiation by saying that he then had in mind the question of arbitration. On the following day Sir Julian addressed to Mr. Blaine a formal note, in which he referred to the statement in the newspapers, and said that, as it had been confirmed by

1 For Rel. 1890, 410-417.

"Case of Great Britain, Fur Seal Arbitration, V. 515-516.

Mr. Blaine on the preceding day, he was instructed by Lord Salisbury to state that a formal protest by Her Majesty's gov ernment against any such interference with British vessels would be forwarded without delay. On the 29th of May Mr. Blaine replied that he was instructed by the President "to protest against the course of the British Government in authorizing, encouraging, and protecting vessels which are not only interfering with American rights in the Behring Sea, but which are doing violence as well to the rights of the civilized world." Mr. Blaine declared that prior to April 23, 1888, Lord Salisbury had "in every form of speech assented to the necessity of a close season for the protection of the seals," and that the "change of policy made by Her Majesty's government” in offering instead a mixed commission of experts to determine the questions at issue, and in the mean time a limited zone of protection around the islands, was, in the President's belief, the cause of all the differences that had followed. Nevertheless, he said that he was instructed by the President to state that, while the proposal of April 29 for a convention could not be accepted, the United States would continue negotiations in the hope of reaching an agreement that might conduce to a good understanding and leave no cause for future dispute, and to propose that, as it was too late to conclude the negotiation in time to apply its results to the current season, Her Majesty's government agree not to permit British vessels to enter Behring Sea during that season, in order that time might be secured for negotiation without the risk of its disturbance by untoward events.'

On the 2d of June Mr. Blaine again wrote to Formal Protest Sir Julian Pauncefote, stating that he had hac Against Further a prolonged interview with the President in Seizures. relation to the fur-seal question, and that as an arbitration could not be concluded in time for the pending season the President most anxiously desired to know "whether Lord Salisbury, in order to promote a friendly solution of the question, will make for a single season the regulation which in 1888 he offered to make permanent." Replying to this inquiry, Sir Julian Pauncefote, in a note of the following day, said he had no doubt that the words used by Mr. Blaine had reference "to the proposal of the United States that British sealing ves

1 For. I el. 1890, 424-429.
*Id. 429.

sels should be entirely excluded from the Behring Sea during the seal fishery season." He should not, he said, attempt to discuss whether what took place "in the course of the abortive negotiations of 1888" amounted to an offer on the part of Lord Salisbury "to make such a regulation permanent;" but it would suffice for his present purpose to state that further examination of the question had satisfied his lordship "that such an extreme measure as that proposed in 1888 goes far beyond the requirements of the case." Her Majesty's government were, said Sir Julian Pauncefote, willing to adopt all measures which should be satisfactorily proved to be necessary for the preservation of the fur-seal species, and to enforce such measures on British subjects by proper legislation; but they were not prepared to agree to such a regulation as that which had been suggested in 1888, for the pending season, since, apart from other considerations, there would be no legal power to enforce its observance on British subjects and British vessels. To this note Mr. Blaine replied on the 4th of June, maintaining that the most extreme measure proposed in 1888 came from Lord Salisbury himself, and that a larger measure of protection than that which had lately been offered by Great Britain was requisite. He declared that the President sincerely regretted "that his considerate and most friendly proposal for adjustment of all troubles connected with the Behring Sea should be so promptly rejected." On the 6th of June Sir Julian Pauncefote wrote that, pending further instructions, he would abstain from pursuing the discussion on the various points with which Mr. Blaine's last note dwelt, and would only observe that, as regarded the sufficiency or insufficiency of the ten-mile radius which he had proposed on behalf of his government, no opportunity was afforded him of discussing the question "before the proposals of Her Majesty's government were summarily rejected."

On the 9th of June Sir Julian Pauncefote communicated to Mr. Blaine an extract from a telegram which he had just received from the Marquis of Salisbury, in which the latter expressed regret that the President should think him wanting in conciliation, but observed that he could not refrain from thinking that the President did not appreciate the difficulty arising from the law of England. It was, said Lord Salisbury,

For. Rel. 1890, 430-432.

2 Id. 432.

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