JURISDICTIONAL RIGKTS IN BERING SEA. 



287 



postponement wliich an exiiniination of legal authorities from Ulpian 

 to Phillinioro and Kent would involve, lie finds his own views well 

 expressed by Mr. Phelps, our late minister to England, when, after 

 failing- to seenre a just arrangement with Great Britain touching the 

 seal fisheries, he wrote tbe following in his closing communication to 

 his own Government, Sei^tember 12, 1888 : 



Much leiirniug has been expended upon the discussion of the abstract question of 

 the right of mare clansum. I do not conceive it to be applicable to the present case. 



Here is a valuable fishery, and a large and, if properly inanagcd, permanent indus- 

 try, the property of the nations on whose shores it is carried on. It is proposed by 

 the C(dony of a foreign nation, in defiance of the Joint remonstrance of all the coun- 

 tries interested, to destroy this business by the indiscriminate slaughter and exter- 

 mination of the animals in question, in the open neighboring sea, during the period 

 of gestation, when the common dictates of humanity ought to protect them, were 

 there no interest at all involved. And it is suggested that we are prevented from de- 

 fending ourselves against such depredations because the sea at a certain distance 

 from the coast is free. 



The same line of argument would t<ake iTuder its protection piracy and the slave 

 trade when prosecuted in the open sea, or would justify one nation in destroying the 

 commerce of another by placing dangerous obstructions and derelicts in the open sea 

 near its coasts. There are many things that can not be allowed to be done on the 

 open sea with impunity, and against which every sea is mare clausum; and the right 

 of self-defense as to person .and property prevails there as fully as elsewhere. If the 

 fish upon Canadian coasts could be destroyed by scattering poison in the open sea 

 adjacent with some small profit to those engaged in it, would Canada, upon the just 

 principles of international law, be held defenseless in such a case? Yet that process 

 would be no more destructive, inhuman, and Avauton than this. 



If precedents are wanting for a defense so necessary and so proper, it is because 

 precedents for such a course of conduct are likewise unknown. The best interna- 

 tional law has arisen from precedents tbat have been established when the just occa^ 

 sion for them arose, undeterred by the discussion of abstract and inadequate rules. 



I have the honor to be, sir, with the highest consideration, your obe- 

 dient servant, 



Jajmes G. Blaine. 



[There are three inclosures, to-wit: Inclosnre A, treaties of 1824 and 1825, for 

 which see Vol. — , p. — . Inclosure B, list of iiiaps, printed infra. Inclosuro C, sec- 

 tion 4 of "An act to regulate the intercourse with St. Helena," for which see Vol. 

 - p. -.] 



[Inclosnre B.] 



List of early maps, with special desig nation of icaters notv known, as Behring Sea, with 

 (late and place of publication . 



[In these maps the waters south of Behring Sea .are v.ariously designated as the Pacitic Ocean, 0c6an 

 Paciflqne, Stilles Meer; the Great Ocean, Grande Mor, Grosser Ocean; the Great South Sea, 

 Grosser Siid-See, Mer du Sud. And they are again further divided, .and tlie northern part designated 

 as North Pacific Ocean, Partie du Nord dola Mer du Sud, Partie du Nord de la Grande Mer, Gnand Ocean 

 Bor6al, Nordlicher Theil des Grossen Siid-Meers, Kcirdlicher Theil des Stillen Meers, Nordliche Stille 

 Meer, etc. In all the maps, however, the Pacific Ocean, under one of these various titles, is desig- 

 nated as separate from the sea.] 



' Unknown. 



