560 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
{Inclosure in No. 377.] 
Extract from the ** New York Herald” of June 26, 1890. 
{From our regular Correspondent. | 
“HERALD” BUREAU, CORNER OF FIFTEENTH AND G Strrerrs, N.W., 
Washington, June 25, 1890. 
The story of a recent interference by the President with the conduct and progress 
of the Behring’s Sea negotiations has been circulating confidentially in Washington 
for several weeks. Its publication now, after the interposition of the President had 
ceased and the mischief threatened by it had passed away, is regarded in some 
quarters as a counter-attack on Mr. Blaine for his alleged Tariff heresy. 
The following is a plain statement of the facts of the Behring’s Sea episode, 
obtained from an authoritative source. It shows that, as soon as the President saw 
the consequences of his well-meant intention, and that he had separated himself in 
some degree from Mr. Blaine, he hastened to reunite himself to the Secretary and to 
strengthen the latter’s position to the fullest extent as against adverse influences in 
the Administration. 
Steps in Diplomacy. 
The oral discussion of the Behring’s Sea question began between Secretary Blaine 
and Minister Pauncefote last January. The Secretary advanced and the Minister 
combated the claim of a territorial jurisdiction by the United States over all that 
part of Bebring’s Sea lying east and south of the boundary-line drawing through 
Behring’s Strait and across the sea by the Treaty with Russia for the cession of 
Alaska to this country. Without coming to a head the discussion was laid aside by 
mutual consent and without prejudice to the position of either party, for the reason 
that the British Representative admitted that his Government was not only willing, 
but desirous, on grounds of good neighbourhood and of a mutual interest, to enter 
into an arrangement that would efficiently protect the seals resorting to Bekring’s 
Sea from injurious molestation or slaugliter. 
As these were the very and the only objects for which the United States Govern- 
ment was desirous to establish its claim to a territorial jurisdiction in the waters of 
the sea, it was agreed to shift the discussion to the project of an international regu- 
lation of seal-catching wherein a prohibition of marine sealing during the annual 
breeding season should form a leading position. Russia, being a necessary party to 
such an arrangement, and having an identical interest with that of the United States 
as the owner of seal-rookeries in Behring’s Sea, was invited to take part in the new 
discussion, and did so through its Resident Envoy at Washington. 
Mr. Blaine, however, was not satisfied te rest wholly upon the British assurance 
that England was even something more than willing to assist the United States 
509 in taking due care of its seal property. In preparing for his friendly and 
informal conferences with the British Minister he had taken, upon his notes, a 
suggestion to draw into discussion the question, in view of the peculiar habits of the 
fur-seal (which though nomadic during part of each year returned regularly and for 
a considerable period to its home within the ITnited States), whether this Govern- 
ment might not lay claim to a right to extend a reasonable protection to the animal 
during its various movements in the waters surrunding its rookecies. 
This discussion he pressed upon the Minister, relying upon the well-established 
English doctrine of the “intention to return” ta offset the legal argument that 
property in animals of a wild nature is limited te the period of possession. This 
second and independent claim to a police jurisdiction in Behring’s Sea is still pend- 
ing, and the arguments on both sides of it have been fully and formally stated, with 
the help of competent lawyers, and made matter of record, should it ever become 
necessary to revert to the claim. 
A Close Season. 
Up to the stage above indicated the negotiations had proceeded without obstrne- 
tion. Not till the Plenipotentiaries came together to settle principal details of the 
agreed International Regulations did it appear that while the United States contem 
plated a close season in Behring’s Sea covering the whole period of six months or 
more during which the seals were moving into and out of the sea and were reposing 
at the rookeries, Great Britain proposed simply such arrangements as would reason- 
ably guard against an excessive catching of female seals, by which the perpetuity 
of the herd would be endangered. In lieu of a single and continuous close season, 
covering the whole time of the yearly presence of the seals in Behring’s Sea, which 
was the project of the United States, the British proposal was of two short periods 
of closure, one during the inward and another during the outward movement of the 
seals, supplemented by a broad belt of isolation around the rookeries, which no 
sealing-vessel was to penetrate. 
