The San Francisco call., 1896-02-17
A SERIOUS PROBLEM.

The San Francisco Bulletin has recently
published a series of instructive articles
concerning the terrible fate of some Amer
ican and English seamen and seal-fshers
caught poaching on Robbep Island, Rus.
sian possession, and sentenced to serve
the full penalty OF the Russian law, seven
teen years in Siberian prison. Our con-
temporary asserts that the news of the
matter was brought hither by the British
schooner Saipan, that the high State au-
thorities of California declined to appeal to
the National Government for an investiga-
ton, and that in the absence of that assist
ance a petition for an inquiry has been
forwarded to Washington by several sea-
captains of this port, and the friends and
relatives of Edward Howe, native Cali
fornian, who is named as one of the VIC
tins of Russia's terrible discipline.
Assuming these facts to be true, and
basing that assumption On the Bulletin s
reputation for care, we are confronted
with a case of uncommon gravity. Ap-
parently Russia has acted strictly within
its laws. 1t found men unlawfuily taking
seals within its waters, and without con-
corning itself with international questions
or the policy pursued by the United States
and England in similar cases, it applied
its law and imposed upon the offenders
the fullest penalty. This punishment Is
infinitely seyerer than that which the
United States and England would impose.
1t is equivalent to death.
1t is we'll for cases like this to arise, for
they serve to measure degrees of civiliza-
ton and to modify the savagery of nations
which have Onlv hppup m LIFT THAR Il,
above the horizon Of barbarity. The
United States and England cannot afford
to permit any country under the sun to
infiict upon the people who claim their
protection severer penalty for the infrac-
ton of ordinary rights than they them
selves impose. To do otherwise would be
to encourage barbarism and reduce the
potency of a civilized protection.
The case will appear clearer upon taxing
into account the fact that three nations
the United States, England and Russia
have interests in the seal fisheries, and
that England and the United States each
turn over to the other by agreement, under
the guard of just laws in common and O
mutual system of surveillance, their re-
spectiye subjects or citizens who have vio-
lated the law. Under that system poaeh-
ing is treated fairly as an act of common
theft and the offender is punished in ac-
cordance with his deserts. But neither of
these countries imposes sentence of any
thing like imprisonment in a Siberian
prison for seventeen years, in comparison
with which hanging would be merciful.
Ii the combined power of the United
States and England is not sufficient to
bring Russia. by peaceful means, under
the operation of civilized laws in the mat
ter of common theft, where the lives ana
liberty of Americans and Englishmen are
imperiied, it would be better to abandon
Beripg Sea to the great White Gear and
permit him to cut the throat of every fish
erman or navigator who comes within
sight of the Aleutian Islands. The petit
ton which has been forwarded to Wash
ington from California may be humble, but
it cries aloud for common justice and the
progress of the world