The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1891-01-08
OUR BEHRING SEA RIGHTS
A Comprehensive History of the
Whole Afrair-Mr. Blaine's Firm
ness Gratifying to Every True
Amcrican-His Arguments.

ASb bS0A AASA Wy SShhSAASA' A4S VIZ
coveries of Behring and his lieutenanta
however, as illustrated by the chart
issued after the expedition, ended at
point on the coast on the parallel Of 5
degrees 40 minutes, and there Russian
rights were thought to terminate. Thl
earliest Russian legislation on the sub
ject was in the form OF an Imperia
ukase, promulgated in 1899, claiming
Jurisdiction to the 55th degree and char
tering a company with exclusive rights
to trade and fish as far south as tha
parallel.
Our claim in the present controversy
ia the right to protect the herd OF fur
seal which inhabit our islands, the Phi
bilod group, in Behring Sea, agains
persons who, during its passage at the
CESSATION period through the sea, inter
Cept and attack it. The situation il
unique. The sea is immense, but we
own all the land along its eastern and
southern shore. 1t has no relation what
ever to the worlds commerce. Nc
ship can have any inducement to enter
its waters except to cruise alter whales
or seal. The seal is an amphibean. II
lives for third OF the year on our
islands, where, at vast expense, we
care for its rookeries and pursue our in
dustry in its fur. The assertion Of such
jurisdiction over the waters as will
enable US to protect it during its migra'
tons to and from the Islands cannot
therefore interfere in the remotest de.
gree with the worlds commerce or with
any lawful purpose that a vessel may
have in approaching our Alaskan domin'
ions. The British contention is that we
do not own the seal at ali; that the seal
are theirs as much as ours; that the
facts OF their being born and of their
living for SO much OF each year upon
our land give US no title in them after
they leave our shores; that they are
then wild animals in the high sea and
as free to British as American sealers,
and that the law OF nations confines our
jurisdiction beyond the sea to marine
league, and allows us no authority over
the waters treversed by the seal.
In considering these contentious It is
important to know that Russia in 1868
understood she was selling and we un-
derstood we were buying, not merely a
rookery, but the seals upon it, together
with Jurisdiction in the Bebring Sea
for 100 miles from the Alaskan and
Aleutian shore lines. 1t is admitted that
Russia transferred to US all the rights she
had, and II these rights were in fact hers
that is to say, il she had claimed and
exercised them, and if her claim had
been acquiesced in by other nations
either by treaty, agreement or by alb
staining from attempts at its invasion, it
is clear that Great Britain is called upon
to explain the ground upon which she
denies to US the authority in Behring
Sea which she conceded to Russia,
It has been the purpose OF
Mr.. Blaine's earlier dispatches to
show that Great Britain by de-
liberate marks Of aCquiescence plainly
acknowledged the Cars authority and
continuously respected 1t where she now
denies ours, and that the treaty OF 1926,
with subsequent conventions, was writ
ten testimony to the validity OF the
Russ IN claims. llthis Lord Salisbury
has denied, asserting that the Controver-
sies between America and England on
the one hand and Russia on the other,
which were adjusted by the treaties OF
1924 and 1925, concerned not merely
the coast line and it's waters south OF
the Alaskan peninsula, but all the coast
to Behring's straits, and that the privi-
leges granted and rights acknowledged
by Russia in those treaties related to
Alaska and the Behring Sea ss much as
to the northwest coast and the Pacific
ocean.
1t seemed 10 US that Mr.. Blaine had
disposed Of this assertion even before 1t
was made by the statement OF his
tory with which he resumed negotiR-
tions upon the accession OF President
Harrison. Certainly he met it with
moot eHectual proofs when it was form
ally presented. He showed that the
Cars ukase Of 1921 differed from the
proclamation with which his American
sovereignty was originally advertised
only in two particulars. One was in the
extension OF his authority on the coast
from the 55!h degree down to the 50:h,
and the other was in claiming juriadlc.
ton in the Pacific Ocean 100 miles from
the shore. Mr., Blaine showed that
it was these two claims which
the United state1 and England
resisted and which the Gar aban.
doned upon their demand. He
brought forward in establishing the facts
as he alleged them vast mass OF testi-
mony, not the least significant OF which
was the text OF the Anglo. Russian Treaty
OF 1926 fixing the boundaries between
their possessions from 81 degrees ~
minutes to 90 degrees, and the unim-
peachable fact that from that time until
the transfer OF Alaska to us, Russian do.
minion over Behring Sea and Russian
control OF the seal.herd had been exer.
cieed without tho faintest note OF protest
from Downing street. This, in the judg.
ment OF Sir Robert Phillimore, Eng
lands greatest modern writer on the law
OF nations. is OF itself sufficient to pre-
Clude the right Of England thereafter to
deny RussiR's assertions, whatever may
have been her right Heretofore, an in.
CON petency rendered the more feeble, il
that were possible, by the fact that with.
out word of objection she permitted
Russia 10 transfer her dominion to us,
and US to exercise 1t for eighteen years.
But Lord Salisbury, unconvincsd by
Mr.. Blaine's demonstration, in a dispatch
made public in London last August,
reiterated his assertion that the treaty oil
1925 applied to Alaska and its waters as
we'll as to the continental mainland and
the ocean, and Yentured even to repeat
his statement that this was the under
standing at that time in America as well
as in England. 1t is to this dispatch
that Mr.. Blaine Is now replying, and II
any unprejudiced person can read his
plain, straightforward argument with
out being convinced OF It's sutElciency,
he is not person TO whom facts and
reason are OF consequence. For lucid.
ity OF statement, arpumentative force and
ramoIseless logic, Mr.. Blaine's letter is
indeed unriyalled. It will assume a
Mace among our best State papers and
among the most valuable OF modern con.
tributlons to the discussion Of maritime
rights. It proves that at the time oil
EIsland's and Ameriea's dispute with