352 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
The Committee consulted with Mayor Grant, and a mass meeting was duly adver- 
tised to be held at the City Hall last evening for the purpose referred to. 
By 8 o’clock, at which hour the meeting was called for, every seat in the City Hall 
was taken, and dozens of deeply-interested citizens were compelled to stand. The 
meeting was thoroughly representative, there being present all the leading business 
men of Victoria, vessel owners and practical sealing men, while among the most 
prominent men present were to be noticed the Honourable John Robson, E. Crow 
Baker, M. P., Lieutenant-Colonel E. G. Prior, M. P., the Honourable Robert Beaven, 
M. P. P., D. W. Higgins, M. P. P., 8S. Duck, M. P. P., Mayor Grant, Robert Ward, 
President of British Columbia Board of Trade, Captain J. D. Warren, E. Bb. Marvin, 
W. Munsie, J. H. Todd, Morris Moss, C. Strouss, Captain William Grant, Captain 
Clarke, R. P. Rithet, and very many others. 
Upon motion of the Honourable Mr. Beaven, seconded by Mr. E. Crow Baker, M. P., 
Mayor Grant was requested to take the chair, which he did at 8.15 p. mM. 
His Worship, in opening the meeting, said that the matters for the discussion of 
which the meeting was called had always possessed a deep interest for him. In the 
early part of 1887, he had the honour to move in the House for the submission to the 
Dominion Government of a proposition for submission to the Imperial Government 
in regard to the protection of British sealing interests in Behring’s Sea. His motion 
had been carried without a dissenting voice. In 1888 he had made another proposi- 
tion through the House. This proposition provided that the individual interests 
should not be allowed to suffer by the negligence of the Government in settling this 
question. He had always been very anxious to see an early settlement of the 
Behring’s Sea question. Without further preface, he would call on Mr. Edgar Crow 
Baker, M. P. 
Mr. Baker expressed pleasure at being called on tostrike the first blow. It was a 
matter, he said, that concerned not only the individual, but the entire province, the 
dominion at large, and the whole British !mpire. The matter was one deserving of 
consideration, not only because it touched the individual pockets and the province 
our home, but because it touched our hearths. The view taken by the people of British 
Columbia was that the grand old flag that they had learned to love from infancy had 
not only been insulted, but had been trampled in the dust. (Applanse.) It was 
proposed to place everything in connection with the Behring’s Sea question before the 
meeting truly and fairly from the very start, and to let the citizens of Victoria express 
their calm and conscientious opinion upon them. After referring but briefly to the 
various Treaties that had been made by the United States and Canada, which were 
not, however, entered into at any great length, as they affected more particularly 
the fisheries on the Atlantic seaboard, Mr. Baker pointed ont how, as far back as 1820, 
when Russia owned Alaska, and claimed jurisdiction not only over the 3-mile limit 
about its coasts, but also over the sea 100 miles from land, the United States Secretary 
made a very vigorous protest at St. Petersburgh against the contention of the Rus- 
sian Government. The British Government also strongly disputed Russia’s claim, and 
the result was that in 1824 a Treaty was made with the United States, and in 1825 
one with Great Britain, which showed how the two great nations, Great Britain and 
the United States, joined issue with Russia when she set up the claim to jurisdiction 
over Behring’s Sea, and contended that it was an inland sea, and not a branch of the 
Northern Pacific Ocean. 
On the 20th June, 1867, the United States purchased the territory of Alaska and the 
eastern half of Behring’s Sea from Russia, paying therefor the sum of 7,200,000 dollars. 
At this time, the Russian Government gave them what they claimed to be a clear title 
to the eastern half of Behring’s Sea. If that title was bad the fault is not ours. 
(Applause.) In 1870 the United States Congress passed a measure prohibiting the 
killing of seals in close proximity to the Islands of St. George and St. Paul. Shortly 
after this, the United States Government leased to the Alaska Commercial Com- 
pany the exclusive right to kill seals for twenty years, in consideration of the sum 
of 55,000 dollars per annum, and certain royalties. In the early part of 1889 an Act 
was passed, by some claimed to have been smuggled through Congress in a rush, 
proclaiming not very definitely that intrusions in Behring’s Sea would not be 
318 = allowed; and containiay asweeping clause granting the President power to deal 
with matters in connection with sealing by proclamation. Power of a very 
indefinite kind was also given in regard to giving instructions to the United States 
cutters. Aggressive measures were first taken in 1886, when Mr. T. Lubbe wrote to 
him (Mr. Baker) at Ottawa, informing him that the British interests were endangered. 
Mr. Lubbe’s letter was laid before the Governor-General in Council, and the matter 
was promptly placed before the Imperial Government by the Dominion Cabinet. 
The Minister of Justice at this time gave his opinion in favour of the British Colum- 
bian sealers both to Mr. Baker and to the Imperial Government, pronouncing the 
action of the United States illegal, and urging upon the British Government the 
necessity of taking definite action at once to protect her interests in British Colum- 
bia. ‘This was three years and a-half ago, and it was most mortifying to think that 
