THE BERING SEA CONTROVERSY THE question involved in what is called the Bering Sea controversy may be stated in few words. The Alaskan fur-seal fishery is the most important in the world. It was a material element in the value of that province when purchased by the United States from Russia, at a heavy cost, and one of the principal inducements upon which the purchase was made. Since Alaska became the property of the United States, this fishery has afforded a very considerable revenue to the government by the lease of its privilege, has engaged a large amount of American capital, and the industry of many American people. The product is an important article of commerce and of manufacture, the loss of which would not be easily supplied. seal is amphibious. It is not a denizen of the sea alone, still less a "wanderer of the sea," but requires both land and water for its existence, and especially for its propagation. It has a fixed habitation on the Alaskan shore, from which it never long departs, and to which it constantly returns. It belongs, therefore, to the territory on which it makes its home, and where it breeds, and gives rise there to a business and a revenue, as much entitled to the protection of the government as the larger commerce of the port of New York. The It is the habit of this colony of seals to cross through the sea, during breeding time, to the Pribyloff Islands, which form a part of Alaska, where their young are produced and reared. More sagacious and peculiar in their habits than most animals, and almost human in some of their instincts, this process of seclusion has become essential to successful propagation. It must be tolerated and protected, or propagation will cease. In making the passage, the seals necessarily cross a portion of the Bering Sea which is more than three miles outside of either shore, and is therefore beyond the line usually regarded as the limit of national jurisdiction on the borders of the ocean. It has been the custom for several years past for certain Canadian vessels fitted out for the purpose to intercept the seals on this passage while outside of the three-mile line, and to shoot them in the water. thus destroyed sink and are lost. are considerably diminished in dition. Still, there is a certain profit in the business, inhuman and wasteful as it is. But the necessary result of it, if continued, will be the extermination of the seals in Alaska within a very short time, the destruction of the interests and industries dependent upon them, and in a large measure the withdrawal of the fur-seal skin from commerce and from use. The certainty of this result is proved by what has already taken place. The Secretary of State in his last (published) communication to the British government on this subject, makes the following statement: "From 1870 to 1890, the seal fisheries, carefully guarded and preserved, yielded 100,000 skins each year. The Canadian intrusions began in 1886, and so great Many of the animals Those that are saved value by their con |