1324 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



Warren proved very clearly that Russia did not claim, and that 

 afterwards, the United States, Russia's successor, did not claim, that 

 Behring Sea was a closed sea. We did not intend to give the impres- 

 sion that such a claim had been asserted. If there ever was such a 

 claim it was quite displaced by the correspondence which preceded 

 the reference of the case to arbitration, and nothing is said about it 

 in the reference. 



But the point I wish to make is that the United States, as the suc- 

 cessors of Russia, did contend for that which Russia had claimed (as 

 stated very clearly in its Case at p. 21), that is jurisdiction over 

 Behring Sea, and ownership as to the fisheries. We say that the 

 United States did uphold that contention ; did submit that contention 

 to arbitration in 1893; and did, in 1893, uphold the claim that the 

 fisheries in Behring Sea, or the eastern part of them I am speaking 

 of that, and not at all of the Japanese coast belonged to the United 

 States. 



I refer to Moore's International Law Digest, vol. i, at p. 890. At 

 that page the ukase of the Russian Emperor of 1821 is given, by 

 which he sanctioned certain regulations of the Russian-American 

 Company in this language: 



"'the pursuits of commerce, whaling, and fishing, and of all other 

 industry, on all islands, ports, and gulfs, including the whole of the 

 north west coast of America, beginning from Bering's Strait to the 

 51 of northern latitude, also from the Aleutian Islands to the eastern 

 coast of Siberia, as well as along the Kurile Islands, from Bering's 

 Strait to the south cape of the island of Urup, viz, to 45 50' northern 

 latitude,' were 'exclusively granted to Russian subjects,' and all 

 foreign vessels were forbidden, except in case of distress, " not only 

 to land on the coasts and islands belonging to Russia, as stated above, 

 but also to approach them within less than a hundred Italian miles.' " 



That was the claim of liussia in 1821. That claim met with very 

 decided opposition both from Great Britain and the United States, 

 as is shown upon the following page of this volume, and that opposi- 

 tion led to two treaties, one with the United States in 1824, and one 

 with Great Britain in 1825. By the treaty of 1824 with the United 

 States it was agreed : 



" ' that, in any part of the Great Ocean, commonly called the Pacific 

 Ocean, or South Sea, the respective citizens or subjects of the high 

 contracting parties shall be neither disturbed nor restrained, either 



in navigation or in fishing, or in the power of resorting to the 

 799 coasts, upon points which may not already have been occupied, 



for the purpose of trading with the natives, saving always the 

 restrictions and conditions determined by the following articles.' " 



I need not read those. Then the United States purchased from 

 Russia, all its interest in all the territory and dominion of the Rus- 

 sian Emperor on the continent of America and the adjacent islands. 

 After that the view of the United States underwent a certain change, 



