GREAT Britain's willingness to protect seals. 241 



Lord Salisbury now contends that all the proceedings at the confer- 

 ence of April 16 are to be regarded as only ^'■provisional, in order to fur- 

 nish a basis for riegotiation, and without definitely pledyinci our Govern- 

 ments While the understanding of this Government diiiers from that 

 maintained by Lord Salisbury, I am instructed by the President to say 

 that the United States is willing to consider all the proceedings of 

 April 16, 1888, as canceled, so far as American rights may be con- 

 cerned. This Government will ask Great Britain to adhere only to tlie 

 agreement made between Lord Salisbury and Mr. Phelps on the 25th 

 of February, 1888. That was an agreement made directly between the 

 two Governments and did not include the rights of Kussia. Asking 

 Lord Salisbury to adhere to the agreement of February 25, we leave 

 the agreement of April 16 to be maintained, if maintained at all, by 

 Russia, for whose cause and for whose advantage it was particularly 

 designed. 



While Lord Salisbury makes a general denial of having given "verbal 

 assurances," he has not made a special denial touching the agreement 

 between himself and Mr. Phelps, whicb Mr. Phelps has reported in 

 special detail, and the correctness of which he has since specially af- 

 firmed on more than one occasion. 



In your second note of June 30, received in the afternoon of July 1, 

 you called my attention (at Lord Salisbury's request) to a statement 

 which I made in my note of June 4 to this efiect: 



It is evident, therefore, that in 1888 Lord Salisbury abruptly closed the negotia- 

 tion because, in his own phrase, ''the Canadian Government objected." 



To show that there were other causes for closing the negotiation 

 Lord Salisbury desires that attention be called to a remark made to 

 liim by Mr. Phelps on the 3d day of April, 1888, as follows: " Under 

 the peculiar circumstances of America at this moment, with a general 

 election imi)ending, it would be of little use and indeed hardly i)racti- 

 cable to conduct any negotiation to its issue before the general elec- 

 tion has taken place.'' 



I am quite ready to admit that such a statement made by Mr. Phelps 

 might now be adduced as one of the reasons for breaking off the nego- 

 tiation, if in fact the negotiation had been then broken off, but Lord 

 Salisbury immediately proceeded with the negotiation. The remark 

 ascribed to Mr. Phelps was made, as Lord Salisbury states, on the 3d of 

 April, 1888. On the 5th of April Mr. Phelps left London on a visit to 

 the United States. On the 6th of April Lord Salisbury addressed a pri- 

 vate note to Mr. White to meet the Russian ambassador at the foreign 

 office, as he had appointed a meeting for April 16 to discuss the ques- 

 tions at issue concerning the seal fisheries in Bering Sea. 



On the 23d of April there was some correspondence in regard to an 

 order iu council and an act of Parliament. On the 27th of April Under 

 Secretary Barrington, of the foreign ofiice, in an official note, informed 

 Mr. White that "the next step was to bring in an act of Parliament." 



On the 28th of April Mr. White was informed that an act of Parlia- 

 ment would be necessary in addition to the order in council, but that 

 "neither act nor order could be draughted until Canada is heard fromS 



Mr. Phelps returned to London on the 22d of June, and immediately 

 took up the subject, earnestly pressing Lord Salisbury to come to a 

 conclusion. On the 28th of July he telegraphed his Government ex- 

 pressing the "fear that owing to Canadian opposition we shall get no 

 convention." 



On the 12th of September Mr. Phelps wrote to Secretary Bayard that 



31 



