54 



to concede mncli in order to adjust all differences of view, and has, in 

 tlie judgment of the President, already proposed a solution, not only- 

 equitable, but generous. Thus far Her Majesty's Government has 

 declined to accept the proposal of the United States. The President 

 now awaits with deep interest, not unmixed with solicitude, any propo- 

 sition for reasonable adjustment which Her Majesty's Government may 

 submit. The forcible resistance to which this Government is constrained 

 in the Bering Sea is, 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. 



" In this contention the Government of the United States has no occa- 

 sion and no desire to withdraw or modify the positions which it has at 

 any time maintained agaiust the claims of the Imperial Government of 

 Russia. The United States will not withhold from any nation the 

 privileges which it demanded for itself when Alaslca was part of the 

 Russian Empire. ISTor is the Government of the United States dis- 

 j)osed to exercise in those possessions any less power or authority than 

 it was willing to concede to the Imperial Government of Russia when 

 its sovereignty extended over them. The President is persuaded that 

 all friendly nations will concede to the United States the same rights 

 and privileges on the lands and in the waters of Alaska which the same 

 friendly nations have always conceded to the Empire of Russia." U. 8. 

 Case, Vol. J, A;pp., 200. 



In his letter of December 17, 1890, in reply to Lord Salisbury's 

 letter of August 2, 1890, Mr. Blaine discusses with much elaboration 

 and with signal ability all the questions then in dispute between the 

 two governments. In that letter he says: 



"I am directed by the President to say that, on behalf of the United 

 States, he is willing to adopt the text used in the act of Parliament to 

 exclude ships from hovering nearer to the island of St. Helena than 8 

 marine leagues, or he will take the example cited by Sir George Baden- 

 Powell, where, by permission of Her Majesty's Government, control 

 over a part of the ocean GOO miles wide is to-day authorized by Austra- 

 lian law. The President Avill ask the Government of Great Britain to 

 agree to the distance of 20 marine leagues — within which no ship shall 

 hover around the islands of St. Paul and St. George from the 15th of 

 May to the 15th of October of each year. This will prove an effective 

 mode of preserving the seal fisheries for the use of the civilized world — 



