UNIVERSITY 1 



01 



FUR-SEALS AND THE BERING SEA AWARD 27 



replied : " Her Majesty's Government have no difficulty in 

 making such a concession. In strict accord with the views 

 which, previous to the present controversy, were consistently 

 and successfully maintained by the United States, they have, 

 whenever occasion arose, opposed all claims to exclusive privi- 

 leges in the non-territorial waters of Behring Sea. The rights 

 they have demanded have been those of free navigation and 

 fishing in waters which, previous to their own acquisition of 

 Alaska, the United States declared to be free and open to all 

 foreign vessels." 



44 That is the extent of their present contention and they 

 trust that, on consideration of the arguments now presented 

 to them, the United States will recognize its justice and 

 moderation." 



Not in the least disconcerted by these arguments from Lon- 

 don, nor by Lord Salisbury's seemingly clear exposition of the 

 principles of international law touching the case, Mr. Elaine 

 again entered the lists with his adroit pen. He critically re- 

 viewed the history of Russian and American claims in the 

 Bering Sea, and by an ingenious argument to substantiate 

 his contention of a prescriptive right in the United States to 

 control the waters of Bering Sea, he endeavored to prove 

 that the protests of John Quincy Adams, and of other American 

 statesmen referred to by Lord Salisbury, against the Russian 

 claims of the ukase of 1821, were directed, not against Rus- 

 sian claims in Bering Sea proper, but only against the Russian 

 assertions to exclusive jurisdiction from Bering Strait along 

 the entire northwest coast of America to the fifty first parallel of 

 latitude. " Against this larger claim of authority," he urged, 

 (viz., extending farther south on the American coast to 

 the 51 north latitude), "Mr. Adams vigorously protested." 

 Mr. Blaine, therefore, drew a distinction between the 

 " Bering Sea," as such, and the " Pacific Ocean," main- 

 taining that the United States had never opposed by word or 

 deed Russia's claim to exclusive jurisdiction north of the 

 Aleutian Islands, i.e. the Bering Sea, but had only denied 

 Russia's right to exercise such control of the waters south of 

 the Aleutian Islands, i.e. the Pacific Ocean, and as expressed 



