ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 113 



Mr. Blame's note defends the acts complained of by Hei' Majesty's Government ou 

 the following i^rounds: 



1. That "the Canadian vessels arrested and detained iu the Behring Sea were 

 engaged in a pursnit that is in itseli contra boiios viores — a pursuit which of necessity 

 involves a serious and permanent injury to the rights of the Government and people 

 of the United States." 



2. That the fisheries had been iu the undisturbed possession and under the exclu- 

 sive control of Russia from their discovery until the cession of Alaska to the United. 

 States in 1867, and that from this date onwards until 1886 they had also remained in 

 the undisturbed possession of the United States Government. 



3. That it is a fact now held beyond denial or doubt that the taking of seals in the 

 open sea rapidly leads to the extinction of the species, and that therefore nations 

 not possessing the territory upon which seals can increase their numbers by natural 

 growth should refrain from the slaughter of them in the open sea. 



Mr. Blaine further argues that the law of the sea and the liberty which it confers 

 do not justify acts which are immoral in themselves, and which inevitably tend to 

 results against the interest and against the welfare of mankind; and he proceeds to 

 justify the forcible resistance of the United States Government by the necessity of 

 defending not only their own traditional and long established rights, but also the 

 rights of good morals and of good government the world over. 



I have no fault to tiud with tbat statement by Lord Salisbury. It 

 exhibits a clear understanding of the positions taken by Mr. Blaine and 

 well euough describes them, except in the last sentence where he imputes 

 to the United States Government an intention, or a disposition, to 

 defend the rights of good morals and good government the world over. 

 If he means they had asserted a right to undertake to do that, without 

 reference to their own interest, the observation is not a correct one. 



The next occasion on which Mr. Blaine dealt with the subject was in 

 his letter of June 30, 1890, which is found on page 224. In that note 

 he takes up the point, which Lord Salisbury had dealt with before, of 

 Russian claims in Bering Sea, and undertakes to answer and refute 

 Lord Salisbury's view in reference to it; but he does not in that letter 

 in the slightest degree change the attitude which he had previously 

 assumed in reference to pelagic sealing, so far as respected the ground 

 upon which the Government of the United States based its views. He 

 expressly takes care that it shall not be understood that the United 

 States make any assertion of a right of mare clausum as to any part of 

 Bering Sea. I read the paragraph of his letter from page 233. He 

 says there : 



The result of the protest of Mr. Adams, followed by the cooperation of Great Brit- 

 ain, was to force Russia back to 54° 40' as her southern boundary. But there was 

 no renunciation whatever on the part of Russia as to the Behring Sea, to which the 

 ukase especially and i^rimarily applied. As a piece of legislation this ukase was as 

 authoritative in the dominions of Russia as an act of Parliament is in the dominions 

 of Great Britain or an act of Congress in the territory of the United States. Except 

 as voluntarily modified by Russia in the treaty with the United States, April 17, 

 1824, and in the treaty with Great Britain, February 16, 1825, the ukase of 1821 stood 

 as the law controlling the Russian possessions in America until the close of Russia's 

 ownership by transfer to this Government. Both the United States and Great Brit- 

 ain recognized it, respected it, obeyed it. It did not, as so many suppose, declare 

 the Behring Sea to be mare clausum. It did declare that the waters, to the extent of 

 100 miles from the shores, were reserved for the subjects of the Russian Empire. Of 

 course many hundred miles, east and west and north and soutli, were thus inten- 

 tionally left by Russia for the whale fishery and for fishing, open and free to the 

 world, of which other nations took large advantage. Perhaps in pursuing this 

 advantage foreigners did not always keep 100 miles from the shore, but the theory 

 of right on which they conducted their business unmolested was that they observed 

 the conditions of the ukase. 



But the 100-mile restriction performed the function for which it was specially 

 designed in preventing foreign nations from molesting, disturbing, or by any possi- 

 bility sharing in the fur trade. The fur trade formed the principal, almost the sole 

 employment of the Russian American Company. It formed its employment, indeed, 

 to such a <legree that it soon became known only as the Russian American Fur Com- 

 pany, and quite suggestively that name is given to the Company by Lord Salisbury 



B S, PT XII 8 



