58 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



continued, with some slight interruptions, into the early 

 spring of 1899, when a further adjournment was made to 

 the following summer. The meetings, however, were never 

 resumed. 



Unfortunately, the subject of pelagic sealing soon became 

 involved in the adjustment of other important questions be- 

 fore the commission. An idea was at first entertained that 

 the United States might do well to purchase from the Cana- 

 dian sealers their entire outfits, and thus nullify the very 

 pertinent argument of the Canadians that complete cessation 

 of pelagic sealing would bring financial ruin to a number of 

 British subjects who had already invested their capital in 

 vessels and in the paraphernalia needed for catching seals 

 in the open sea. This plan, however, was rejected, and 

 another method of settlement had to be sought. 



The most important question before the commission, and 

 the one which presented the most stubborn difficulties, was 

 that of commercial reciprocity. The Canadian agents were 

 quick to seize upon the opportunity of securing a good bar- 

 gain through the eagerness of the United States to secure laws 

 absolutely prohibiting pelagic sealing. Accordingly, they 

 valued their " concession " in this respect the more highly, 

 and demanded in return what appeared to the Americans 

 to be an unreasonably large price in the shape of a free list 

 of American importations from Canada. The more this 

 question was discussed, the more hopeless of solution it ap- 

 peared to be. Finally the commission encountered an unsur-i 

 mountable obstacle to all negotiations in the Alaska boundary' 

 dispute; when adjournment took place (February, 1899), the 

 Bering Sea question as, indeed, all the other issues before 

 the board were left entirely unsettled. 



It will be recalled that one of the points of disagreement 

 between the two powers in framing the Washington conven- 

 tion of February 29, 1892, had been in the matter of British 

 claims against the United States for the seizure and con- 

 demnation of Canadian vessels in Bering Sea. In 1886-87, 

 when the evils of pelagic sealing were first noticed by the 

 United States Government, a number of vessels hailing from 



