I

THE FUR-SEALS AND THE BERING SEA AWARD

By treaty of March 30, 1867, in consideration of the sum of $7,200,000, Russia ceded to the United States all her possessions in North America. These included the present territory of Alaska, the Aleutian chain, and some isolated groups of islands in the Bering Sea. The western boundary of the territory so transferred to the United States was described in the first article of the treaty as follows:

The western limit within which the territories and dominion conveyed, are contained, passes through a point in Bering's Straits on the parallel of sixty-five degrees thirty minutes north latitude, at its intersection by the meridian which passes midway between the islands of Krusenstern, or Ignalook, and the island of Ratmanoff, or Noonarbook, and proceeds due north, without limitation, into the same Frozen Ocean. The same western limit, beginning at the same initial point, proceeds thence in a course nearly southwest, through Behring's Straits and Behring's Sea, so as to pass midway between the northwest point of the island of St. Lawrence and the southeast point of Cape Choukotski, to the meridian of one hundred and seventy-two west longitude; thence, from the intersection of that meridian, in a southwesterly direction, so as to pass midway between the island of Attou and the Copper island of the Komondorski couplet or group, in the North Pacific Ocean, to the meridian of one hundred and ninetythree degrees west longitude, so as to include in the territory conveyed the whole of the Aleutian Islands east of that meridian.

An unusual example was here presented of a divisional line between two empires passing almost midway through a great ocean. The boundary in question marks the western

limit within which the territories and dominion convey contained. This terse description may be regarded shorter and more convenient mode of expression th separate enumeration of a bewildering number of i yet it involved a confusing implication-that intended by these words to convey to the United Stat only all the islands lying east of the imaginary line so nated, but, indeed, the actual sea itself, with full and sive dominion over the same. This construction intent and purpose of this clause of the treaty, h novel or in ill accord with the usages of nations, apparent weight from the fact that through a per many years Russia had persistently claimed extraor rights of navigation and fisheries in Bering Sea, which even at that time were regarded by civilized r as beyond the sanction of international law. The tant question had Russia, by her assertions, gained a title to the waters of Bering Sea, and then, had the 1 States really acquired by purchase a dominion over t tensive body of water, or even greater privileges of tion therein than are enjoyed in common by all natio formed one of the issues in the Bering Sea arbitration held in Paris, in the spring and summer of 1893.

As early as the year 1800, Russia had establish Alaska a chartered company, with exclusive rights of ing and fishing in its waters and of trading with its population. In order better to protect the interests flourishing business organization, the Emperor Ale the First, in 1821, issued an ukase, or proclamation, following words:

SECTION I. The transaction of commerce, and the pur whaling and fishing, or any other industry on the islands harbors and inlets, and, in general, all along the northy coast of America from Behring Strait to the fifty-first par northern latitude, and likewise on the Aleutian Islands an the eastern coast of Siberia, and on the Kurile Islands; from Behring Strait to the southern promontory of the Is Urup, viz., as far south as latitude forty-five degrees an

minutes north, are exclusively reserved to subjects of the Russian Empire.

SECTION II. Accordingly, no foreign vessel shall be allowed either to put to shore at any of the coasts and islands under Russian dominion as specified in the preceding section, or even to approach the same to within a distance of less than one hundred Italian miles. Any vessel contravening this provision shall be subject to confiscation with her whole cargo.

At the time of the promulgation of this law (1821), the principle of absolute freedom of navigation in the open sea was generally recognized, and no nation could rightfully assert her sovereignty over the ocean further than three marine leagues from her own shores. This distance was considered the average range of a cannon shot, and, therefore, the limit within which a people could protect their marine jurisdiction from the land. Seven years before that time

the American commissioners at Ghent had made the attitude of the United States Government in this matter quite clear by their determined opposition to England's threatened assertion of jurisdiction over the Newfoundland banks. Alexander the First either considered himself superior to the operation of international law, or he may have regarded the entire Bering Sea as a closed sea, or mare clausum, over which he could properly exercise sole control, even to the total exclusion of all foreign vessels. The fact that in 1821 the waters of the Bering Sea washed only Russian shores, which, in some respects, suggested a closed sea, probably led the Emperor Alexander to regard his assertions of enlarged dominion over the whole or any part of it as not only just and right, but fully in keeping with the principles of international law. Bering Sea is in reality a vast ocean, communicating with the larger Pacific Ocean through many channels of great width. It is, indeed, a part of the greater ocean, and should properly be so considered, being separated from it only by a line of islands that often lie many miles apart.

The violation of legal principles concerning the extent of marine jurisdiction, made by the Russian Emperor's ukase of

1821, might have gone unchallenged by the world for many years; for, in those early times, very few merchant vessels had occasion to visit those distant waters, and in general little interest attached to their inhospitable shores; nevertheless, fleets of American whalers had even before that time found their way north of the Aleutian Islands, following the custom of making annual summer cruises thereabouts in pursuit of whales, which were abundant in the cold waters of the Bering Sea. The Russian restrictions upon navigation in the northern Pacific Ocean seriously embarrassed those hardy sea-rovers from New Bedford and Nantucket. Through their complaints to the State Department in Washington, an American protest appeared against these Russian assertions of sovereignty over so large an expanse of ocean. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, in a communication of February 25, 1822, to Mr. Poletica, then Russian Minister at Washington, said: —

I am directed by the President of the United States to inform you that he has seen with surprise, in this edict, the assertion of a territorial claim on the part of Russia, extending to the fiftyfirst degree of north latitude on this continent, and a regulation interdicting to all commercial vessels other than Russian, upon the penalty of seizure and confiscation, the approach upon the high seas within one hundred Italian miles of the shores to which that claim is made to apply. . . . It was expected before any act which should define the boundaries between the United States and Russia on this continent, that the same would have been arranged by treaty between the parties. To exclude the vessels of our citizens from the shore, beyond the ordinary distance to which the territorial jurisdiction extends, has excited still greater surprise.

Mr. Poletica replied February 28, only three days after the receipt of Mr. Adams' communication:

I ought, in the last place, to request you to consider, sir, that the Russian possessions in the Pacific Ocean extend, on the northwest coast of America, from Behring Strait to the fifty-first degree of north latitude, and on the opposite side of Asia, and the islands adjacent, from the same Strait to the forty-fifth degree. The extent of sea, of which these possessions fo:m the