1821 and the treaties of 1824 and 1825, and insisted that they were conclusive in favor of Great Britain's right to take seals throughout Bering Sea,1 vites interna tion. The United States Government did not reply Mr. Bayard into the point thus raised. On the contrary, ontional coöperathe 19th of August, 1887, Mr. Bayard, Secretary of State, had already sent out to various foreign governments a note,2 in which he said: "Without raising any question as to the exceptional measures which the peculiar character of the property in question may justify this Government in taking, and without reference to any exceptional marine jurisdiction that might properly be claimed for that end, it is deemed advisable. . to obtain the desired ends by international cooperation." This was followed on the 7th of February, 1888,3 by a note addressed to Mr. Phelps containing general suggestions for international action, which, in principle, appear to have been assented to by Lord Salisbury.* 1 Appendix to Case of the United States, Vol. I, p. 162. 168. 2 Appendix to Case of the United States, Vol. I, p. 3 Appendix to Case of the United States, Vol. I, p. 172. 4 Appendix to Case of the United States, Vol. I, pp. 175, 212, 218. Mr. Bayard in- On the 2d of March, 1888, Mr. Bayard again vites interna tional coöpera- insisted on the necessity of protecting the seals tion. Mr. Blaine's statement of the issues. "by an arrangement between the governments On the 22d of January, 1890, Mr. Blaine, Secretary of State, wrote to Sir Julian Pauncefote, Her Majesty's Minister: "In the opinion of the President, the Canadian vessels arrested and detained in the Behring Sea were engaged in a pursuit that was contra bonos mores, a pursuit which of necessity involves a serious and permanent injury to the rights of the Government and the people of the United States. To establish this ground it is not necessary to argue the question of the extent and nature of the sovereignty of this Government over the waters of the Behring Sea; it is not necessary to explain, certainly not to define, the powers and privileges ceded by His Imperial Majesty the statement of the Emperor of Russia in the treaty by which the Mr. Blaine's Alaskan Territory was transferred to the United issues. States. The weighty considerations growing out of the acquisition of that Territory, with all the rights on land and sea inseparably connected therewith, may be safely left out of view, while the grounds are set forth upon which this Government rests its justification for the action complained of by Her Majesty's Government."1 The grounds set forth were these: (1) The value of the sealeries and the absence of any interference with them down to 1886. (2) That the taking of seals in the open water rapidly leads to their extermination, because of the indiscriminate slaughter of the animal, especially of the female; with which slaughter Mr. Blaine contrasts the careful methods pursued by the United States Government in killing seals upon the Islands. (3) That the right of defense by the United States against such extermination is not confined to the three-mile limit, and Mr. Blaine remarks as follows: "Does Her Majesty's Government seriously maintain that the law of nations is powerless to prevent such violation of the common rights of man? Are the supporters of justice in 1 Appendix to Case of the United States, Vol. I, p. 200. Justification of seizures. Justification of all nations to be declared incompetent to prevent wrongs so obvious and so destructive? seizures. Lord Salisbury again introduces ukase. "In the judgment of this Government, the law of the sea is not lawlessness. Nor can the law of the sea, and the liberty which it confers, and which it protects, be perverted to justify acts which are immoral in themselves, which inevitably tend to results against the interests and against the welfare of mankind."1 These were the questions involved, according to the view of the Government of the United States. But, notwithstanding the clear manner in which they were presented, and the explicit statement of Mr. Blaine that the right of the United States to protect the seal does not depend upon the nature of their sovereignty over the waters of Bering Sea, Lord Salisbury in his note of May 22, 1890,2 again recurs to that subject by quoting Mr. Adams's protest against the ukase of 1821, relying thereon to establish the right of British subjects to fish and hunt throughout Bering Sea outside the three-mile limit, which right, granting it to exist, Mr. Blaine had already stated, would not afford the requisite justification.3 1 Appendix to Case of the United States, Vol. I, p. 200. sought interna It thus appears that at the inception of this United States. controversy the United States asserted no right tional agreement. to sovereignty over Bering Sea, but sought the concurrence of Great Britain in an international agreement for the protection of the seals, and that it was not until after this effort had failed, on account of the opposition of the Canadian Government,' that the Government of the United States undertook a reply to Lord Salisbury's assertion that the treaties of 1824 and 1825 with Russia precluded it from protecting the seals in Bering Sea beyond the three-mile limit. It was in this manner that the first four questions stated in the Treaty of Arbitration were raised. It is not intended to say that they did not occupy a prominent place in the diplomatic correspondence, but only to point out that, long before they had arisen, the other and more important issues submitted to this Tribunal had been the subject of elaborate discussion between the two Governments. THE ERRONEOUS TRANSLATIONS OF CERTAIN Sometime after the United States Govern- Imposition practiced upon United ment had delivered its Case to the Agent of Her States GovernBritannic Majesty, it learned that an imposition 1 Appendix to Case of the United States, Vol. I, pp. 215, 216, 218. ment. |