POLITICAL RIGHTS 245 



of peculiar interest to us. A definite western line to the pole is fixed, 

 so far as Canada can fix it, and that line is the 141st west meridian. 

 Of course, to claim up to that meridian is to renounce anything beyond 

 it. In other words, the British now say that they now admit the rights 

 of the United States to all unknown lands north of Alaska. This pro- 

 posed line of division certainly does not rest entirely on any principle 

 of contiguity; however that principle may be described or limited, 

 it does not favor any one point of the compass as against any other; 

 northwest or northeast may be as well "contiguous" as north. Nor 

 does the line rest on any agreement between Ottawa and Washington, 

 or we should know of it. It may accordingly be supposed that the 

 suggestion of this line has as its foundation some legal theory, and that 

 it is not merely an arbitrary continuation of the Alaskan boundary 

 north from Demarcation Point to the pole. 



It appears probable that the Canadian theory of the line of the 

 141st meridian up to the pole is based somewhat on the history and 

 the provisions of former treaties. Going back a century, to about 

 1820, the various territorial pretensions of Russia, Great Britain, 

 and the United States in the vast Northwest were not accurately 

 defined and to some extent were overlapping. In 1821 a famous 

 ukase was issued by Russia. This asserted sovereign rights over the 

 waters of Bering Sea and a large portion of the North Pacific and 

 also claimed land on the west coast as far south as 5 1 °. Protests against 

 the terms of this ukase were promptly made by both Great Britain and 

 the United States. 



Following these protests the United States and Russia signed 

 a treaty, in 1824, by which Russia substantially abandoned any claim 

 to sovereignty over "any part of the Great Ocean" (although this 

 was by no means the last heard of such a claim). The two countries 

 reciprocally agreed that their citizens should not form "any establish- 

 ment" to the north and south of 54° 40', Russia renouncing to the 

 south and the United States to the north of that subsequently famous 

 line. It may be said that the effect of this was to leave territorial 

 questions north of 54° 40' to Russia and Great Britain, and south 

 thereof to Great Britain and the United States. 



The Treaty of 1825 between Great Britain and Russia followed. 

 We now know that the British cared comparatively little about the 

 boundary; they were thinking of navigation and fishing and trade 

 in the Pacific. The frontier clauses were the excuse and the mask 

 for the rest of the treaty. Indeed, the British, if pressed, would have 

 conceded 135° west longitude as the eastern boundary of Russian 

 America, a concession which, if made, would have left all the Canadian 

 Klondike within the United States some generations later. But the 

 141st meridian was agreed to, and, in describing the boundary between 

 the possessions of the two countries, "sur la cote du Continent et 



