4 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



limit within which the territories and dominion conveyed are 

 contained. This terse description may be regarded as a 

 shorter and more convenient mode of expression than the 

 separate enumeration of a bewildering number of islands, 

 yet it involved a confusing implication that Russia 

 intended by these words to convey to the United States, not 

 only all the islands lying east of the imaginary line so desig- 

 nated, but, indeed, the actual sea itself, with full and exclu- 

 sive dominion over the same. ^ This construction of the 

 intent and purpose of this clause of the treaty, however 

 novel or in ill accord with the usages of nations, gained 

 apparent weight from the fact that through a period of 

 many years Russia had persistently claimed extraordinary 

 rights of navigation and fisheries in Bering Sea, rights 

 which even at that time were regarded by civilized nations 

 as beyond the sanction of international law. The impor- 

 tant question had Russia, by her assertions, gained a valid 

 title to the waters of Bering Sea, and then, had the United 

 States really acquired by purchase a dominion over this ex- 

 tensive body of water, or even greater privileges of naviga- 

 tion therein than are enjoyed in common by all nations ? 

 formed one of the issues in the Bering Sea arbitration trial, 

 held in Paris, in the spring and summer of 1893. 



As early as the year 1800, Russia had established in 

 Alaska a chartered company, with exclusive rights of hunt- 

 ing and fishing in its waters and of trading with its native 

 population. In order better to protect the interests of this 

 flourishing business organization, the Emperor Alexander 

 the First, in 1821, issued an. ukase, or proclamation, in the 

 following words: 



SECTION I. The transaction of commerce, and the pursuit of 

 whaling and fishing, or any other industry on the islands, in the 

 harbors and inlets, and, in general, all along the northwestern 

 coast of America from Behring Strait to the fifty-first parallel of 

 northern latitude, and likewise on the Aleutian Islands and along 

 the eastern coast of Siberia, and on the Kurile Islands ; that is, 

 from Behring Strait to the southern promontory of the Island of 

 Urup, viz., as far south as latitude forty-five degrees and fifty 



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