BEHRING SEA ARBITRATION.— APPENDIX TO COUNTER-CASE OF HER 



MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT. 



VOL. I -CORRESPONDENCE RELATING TO THE DATE OF SUB- 

 MITTING BRITISH COMMISSIONERS' REPORT. 



No. 1. 



Mr. Foster to Mr. Herbert. 



Department of State, 

 Washington, September 27, 1892. 



Sir : On the 6tli instant, the day after the receipt by me of the printed 

 Case of Her Majesty's Government called for by the provisions of the 

 Arbitration Treaty of 1892, in a conference which I had the honour to 

 hold with you at the Department of State, I made known to you the 

 painful impression which had been created upon me by a hasty and 

 cursory examiuation of that Case, but 1 withheld any formal repre- 

 sentation on the subject until I could have an opportunity to lay the 

 matter before the President. His absence from this capital and the 

 attendant circumstances have made it necessary for me to delay a com- 

 munication to you till the present. 



I am now directed by the President to say that he has observed with 

 surprise and extreme regret that the British Case contains no evidence 

 whatever touching the principal facts in dispute, upon which the Tri- 

 bunal of Arbitration must in any event largely, and in one event entirely, 

 depend. No proof is presented upon the question submitted by the 

 Treaty concerning the right of property or proj)erty interest asserted 

 by the United States in the seals inhabiting the Pribyloft" Islands in 

 Beliring Sea, or upon the question, also submitted to the Tribunal of 

 Arbitration, concerning the concurrent Eegulations which might be 

 necessary in a certain contingency specified in the Treaty. 



If it were fairly to be inferred from this omission that no proofs on 

 these imi)ortant points are intended to be offered in behalf of Her 

 Majesty's Government, no ground for criticism or objection by the Gov- 

 ernment of the United States could arise, since it is within the exclusive 

 province of either party to determine what evidence it will submit in 

 respect to any part of the controversy, or to refrain from submitting 

 any evidence at all. But such inference as to the course contemplated 

 by the British Government does not seem consistent with certain state- 

 ments made by its Agent in the printed Case submitted by him. In 

 reference to the asserted property rights and interests, it is said, after 

 a brief discussion of the question upon the assumption that seals are 

 feroi naturae : " In the absence of any indication as to the grounds upon 

 which the United States base so unprecedented a claim as that of a 

 right to protection of or proi)erty in animals ferce naturae upon the high 



B s, PT viii^ 19 



289 



