136 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 
covering an area of about 285,000 square miles. On November 28, 1876, an 
order in council was made bringing the act into operation and fixing the 3d of 
April in each year as the earliest day on which it should be lawful to take seals 
in that region. Concurrent action was taken by Denmark, the Netherlands, 
Norway, and Sweden; but, despite these regulations, the fishery has gradually 
declined, and since 1900 relatively few seals have been taken in these waters. 
So far as we are aware, this is the only instance in which Norway has acted in 
concert with other nations in regulating any branch of the fisheries on the high 
seas other than those designed for protecting submarine cables. 
EXTENSION OF TERRITORIAL JURISDICTION. 
As has been set forth in the first chapter of this paper, a nation can not 
independently establish any regulations over fisheries prosecuted by foreigners 
on the high seas. Each nation legislates for itself, and its regulations can 
operate on its subjects alone. 
But has a state no power whatever to safeguard its marginal fishery 
resources by regulations applicable on the adjacent high seas to foreigners as 
well as to subjects? If the marginal resources are jeopardized by some very 
destructive procedure of foreign fishermen immediately outside territorial 
waters, would not international law sanction interference with those operations 
in order to preserve sustenance and livelihood to the coastal population? Even 
as nations now exercise jurisdiction over foreign vessels beyond the marine 
league for enforcing quarantine and revenue laws, may not authority somewhat 
analogous be exercised to preserve the fishery resources within the marine belt? 
This principle of interference and protection, applied to a concrete case 
was the chief contention of the United States before the Bering Sea tribunal in 
1893; and the assumption of such authority is greatly discredited by the 
decision in that case, which must be regarded as an authoritative declaration 
of international law. It is universally admitted that pelagic sealing is highly 
destructive and threatens the existence of the fur seals in the territorial waters 
and on the shores of the United States, to the great loss and injury of American 
subjects; and yet it was decided that the nation is powerless to prevent their 
destruction by foreign fishermen. Indeed, unless there be special agreement 
to the contrary, foreign fishermen may remain just outside the marine league 
and slaughter every seal that ventures that far from the shore, even to the last 
member of the herd, and the American Government is without authority to 
interfere. A similar condition exists about the Russian islands, and the Japanese 
fishermen endeavor to make the most of their rights in this respect, off the Ameri- 
can as well as the Russian shores. 
The recent action of the British Government in excluding foreign fishermen 
from trawling in the Firth of Moray, on the eastern coast of Scotland, seems at 
variance with the conclusions of the Bering Sea tribunal. In 1889 (52 and 53 
Vict., ch. 23, July 26, 1889), Parliament authorized the Fishery Board for Scotland, 
