CONCURRENT REGULATIONS. 193 



that they might appropriate to themselves the annual increase without 

 impairing the stock, could not be destroyed by the indiscriminate and 

 unrestricted slaughter of the animal upon the seas. What the precise 

 nature of their right was, and what its limits were, had not been sub- 

 jected to thorough consideration. That they could prevent marauding 

 upou the islands themselves and in the waters immediately surround- 

 ing them, and also any hovering in the neighborhood of them for such 

 purposes, seemed too plain for question. And in view of the circum- 

 stance that this industry had been cherished by Russia for half a cen- 

 tury, and that the claims to prohibitive jurisdiction over Bering Sea had 

 been for a similar period asserted, and, as was believed by the Govern- 

 ment of the United States, for the most part acquiesced in, it seemed 

 to the Congress of the United States a reasonable exercise of natural 

 rights to prohibit the capture of fur-bearing animals in the eastern half 

 of Bering Sea, and laws were enacted by that body designed to effect 

 such prohibition. 



These laws were not limited in their operation to citizens of the United 

 States, but might be enforced against the citizens of other nations; 

 and while, by their terms, they assumed to be operative only over the 

 Territory of Alaska and "the waters thereof," their language was in- 

 terpreted to include so much of Bering Sea as was embraced by the 

 terms of the cession from Russia to the United States. At first there 

 was little, if any, occasion for any attempt to enforce the prohibitions 

 of this legislation against any persons engaging in pelagic sealing. It 

 was not until the year 1886 that this made of pursuit had been prose- 

 cuted sufficiently to attract the serious notice of the United States; 

 but in that year quite a large number of vessels were fitted out for this 

 purpose from Canadian ports on the northwest coast, and entered Ber 

 ing Sea. Some of them were captured by armed vessels of the United 

 States, and demands for the release of them were made by Her Ma- 

 jesty's Government. 



In the discussions which followed those demands, the right of the 

 United States to make such captures was asserted by them and denied 

 by Her Majesty's Government; but the destructive tendencies of the 

 pursuit thus sought to be prevented by the United States was substan- 

 tially admitted and regarded on both sides as threatening practical ex- 

 termination of the animals. This would h.iveaffectel most disastrous- 

 ly the interests of both nations. Both would thereby lose, in common with 

 the world at large, the benefits derived from the useful products of that 

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