JURISDICTIONAL AND OTHER RIGHTS OVER BERING SEA. 37 



make those islands their breeding places, an industry not only prof- 

 itable to herself, but in a high degree useful to mankind; that the 

 United States since the cession have, upon the basis of the same property 

 interest, carefully maintained and cherished that industry, and that no 

 other nations, or other men, have any right to destroy or injure it by 

 prosecuting au inhuman and destructive warfare upon the seal in clear 

 violation of natural law; and that the United States have full and per- 

 fect right, under the law of nations, to prevent this destructive warfare 

 by the reasonable exercise of necessary force wherever upon the seas 

 such exercise is necessary to the protection of their property and indus- 

 try. The undersigned therefore submit the question concerning the 

 assertions of maritime authority by Eussia and the acquiescence therein 

 by Great Britain upon the argument of Mr. Blaine, contained in his 

 notes to Sir Julian Pauncefote of June 30, 1890, 1 and December 17, 

 1890. 2 



It is, however, important that the real nature of these assertions 

 should not be misunderstood. The words " exclusive jurisdiction in 

 Bering Sea " are used in the questions formulated in the treaty by 

 way of description of the claims of Eussia, and the same, or similar, lan- 

 guage will be found in various places in the diplomatic argument to 

 have been employed in a like sense. From this it might be thought 

 that what Eussia was supposed to have asserted, and what the United 

 States claimed as a right derived from her, was a sovereign jurisdiction 

 over some part of Bering Sea, making it a part of their territory and 

 subject to their laws. This would be entirely erroneous. Eussia never 

 put forward any such pretension. Her claims were that certain shores 

 and islands on the Northwest coast and in the Pacific Ocean and Ber- 

 ing Sea were part of her territory, acquired by discovery and occupa- 

 tion, upon which she had colonial establishments and fishing and seal- 

 ing industries. She chose, in accordance with the policy of the time, 

 to confine the right to trade with these colonies, and the fishing and fur- 

 gathering industries connected with those territorial possessions, to her- 

 self. Concerning her right to do this there never was, or could be, any 

 dispute. So far as her pretensions to exercise an exceptional maritime 

 authority were concerned, they were limited to such measures as she 

 deemed necessary for the protection of these admitted rights. She 

 did not claim to make laws for the sea. The particular assertion 

 of authority which was the interesting point in the discussion be- 



■Case of the United States, Appendix, Vol. I, p. 224. *Ibid, p. 263. 



