THE FUR-SEALS AND THE BERING SEA AWARD 19 



which threaten the speedy extermination of those animals 

 and consequent loss to mankind." It was ordered that no 

 seizures of sealing vessels be made during the season of 1888, 

 and the negotiations for international agreement seemed 

 promising for a successful issue, when, in June of that year, 

 the Marquis of Salisbury announced his intention of with- 

 drawing from the proceeding. This was owing to a request 

 received by him from the Canadian government to await the 

 completion of a memorandum it was preparing upon the sub- 

 ject of American and Canadian interests in Bering Sea. As 

 England's cooperation in any scheme of settlement of the 

 difficulty was absolutely necessary, the negotiations for an 

 international agreement, so happily begun, were unfortu- 

 nately abandoned. 



During the autumn of 1888, a careful examination of the 

 44 Bering Sea Question " was undertaken by a House commit- 

 tee, and an attempt was also made to obtain from Congress 

 a revision of the laws of 1868 and 1870 relating to Alaskan 

 fisheries, that should define more strictly the meaning of the 

 phrase employed in the old statutes, "Alaska and the waters 

 thereof." There was lacking an unanimity of opinion in 

 Congress regarding the right of the United States to prevent 

 pelagic sealing by making captures of offending foreign 

 vessels when operating outside the ordinarily accepted three- 

 mile limit of marine jurisdiction. The press of the country, 

 and perhaps the greater weight of popular sentiment, inclined 

 toward the belief that a legal sanction could be found to justify 

 the seizures of these British vessels and Judge Dawson's deci- 

 sion was generally indorsed. Nevertheless, an irritating doubt 

 as to the authority of the United States to maintain jurisdic- 

 tional claims in the Bering Sea haunted the Senate corridors. 

 The extent and general configuration of that body of water 

 seemed to preclude the idea of a closed sea, especially in 

 the light of the well-known fact that the modern tendency of 

 international usage was to restrict the scope of marine juris- 

 diction. All agreed that pelagic sealing was a pernicious 

 practice and highly detrimental to American interests, and 

 although the attempt to stop it by force seemed to many a 



