DAMAGES CLAIMED BY THE UNITED STATES. 215 



• FIFTH. 



CLAIMS FOR COMPENSATION. 



I. — Damages Claimed by the United States. 



It is provided in article VTll of the Treaty that either party may 

 submit to the Arbitrators any question of fact involved in any claim it 

 may have against the other; and ask for a finding thereon, " the question 

 of the liability of either government upon the f nets found to he the subject 

 of further negotiation. 1 '' 



As the undersigned construes this paragraph, it limits the range of 

 inquiry by the Tribunal to facts which bear only upon the amount of 

 the claims submitted, as the question of liability is left open to be 

 settled by negotiation. 



And in the fifth article of the ModusVivendi of May 9, 1892, 1 it is pro- 

 vided that — 



If the result of the Arbitration be to affirm the right of British sealers 

 to take seals in the Bering Sea, within the bounds claimed by the 

 United States under its purchase from Russia, then compensation shall 

 be made by the United States to Great Britain (for the use of her sub- 

 jects) for abstaining from the exercise of that right during the pendency 

 of the Arbitration, upon the basis of such a regulated and limited catch 

 or catches as in the opinion of the Arbitrators might have been taken 

 without an undue diminution of the seal herds; and, on the other hand, 

 if the result of the Arbitration shall be to deny the right of British 

 scalers to take seals within said waters, then compensation shall be 

 made by Great Britain to the United States (for its citizens and lessees) 

 for this agreement to limit the island catch to 7,500 a season, upon the 

 basis of the difference between this number and such larger catch as, 

 in the opinion of the Arbitrators, may have been taken without an 

 undue diminution of the seal herds. 



This leaves the number of seals which might have been taken in the 

 Bering Sea by the British sealers, and upon the Pribilof Islands by 

 the lessees of the United States, without danger of reducing the seal 

 herd, wholly to the judgment of the Tribunal under the proofs sub- 

 mitted. 



•Case of the United States, Appendix, Vol. I, p. 7. 



