has been the damage resulting from their destruction of seal life in the open sea surrounding the Pribyloff Islands, that in 1890 the government of the United States limited the Alaska Company to 60,000 skins, but the company was able to secure only 21,000 seals."

The simple question presented is whether the United States government has a right to protect its property and the business of its people from this wanton and barbarous destruction by foreigners, which it has made criminal by act of Congress; or whether the fact that it takes place upon waters that are claimed to be a part of the open sea affords an immunity to the parties engaged in it which the government is bound to respect. To the ordinary mind this question would not appear to be attended with much difficulty.

During the administration of President Cleveland, and as soon as these depredations were made known, our government applied to that of Great Britain, setting forth the facts, and proposing that a convention should be entered into between the two nations, in which Russia should be invited to join, limiting the season of the year in which seals might be taken, and prescribing a close time covering the period of breeding, within which they should not be molested: the provisions of the convention to be carried into effect by suitable legislation in the three countries, and under the concurrent authority of their governments. This proposal was not met on the part of the British government by any assertion of the right of the Canadians to destroy the seal in the manner complained of, or by any vindication of the propriety of that business. The expediency of the convention was at once conceded, and the concurrence of Great Britain promised; and

the United States government was requested to prepare and furnish a draft of such regulations as were deemed necessary to accomplish the object. Such a draft was soon after transmitted, and no question ever arose between the governments in respect to its details. The Russian government, whose concurrence in the convention was invited through its ambassador in London, at once agreed to join in it, and expressed its desire that the agreement should be consummated as soon as possible. It was supposed on the part of the American government that the whole matter was satisfactorily arranged, and only awaited the execution of the formal agreement, and the passage of the proper legislation by Parliament and by Congress. But after a considerable delay it transpired that an unexpected obstacle had arisen. It came to be understood that Canada, whose people were carrying on the business in question, declined to assent to the establishment of the proposed restrictions upon it. Having no interest whatever in the preservation of the seal, nor in the property to which it gave value, they preferred to make such profit as they could out of its extermination. And this, after some time spent in what was no doubt a sincere effort on the part of the British government to overcome the objections of Canada, brought the attempt at a convention virtually to an end. These facts are taken from the published despatches of the American Minister at London to his government, without attempting to state anything not already laid before the public.

The laws of all civilized nations, based upon the ordinary dictates of humanity as well as upon the requirements of self-interest, accord to all wild animals

beneficial to mankind and not noxious or mischievous, protection from destruction during the necessary periods of gestation and of rearing their young. Under the provisions of such game laws as everywhere prevail, a man may not slay during that time, even upon his own land, any of those denizens of forest, field, or stream which the Creator has placed there for the benefit or sustenance of man. The woodcock and the partridge minister rather to sport than to profit, yet they are protected in the breeding season in all countries, and preserved from extermination. Nowhere are such salutary laws more rigid in their enactments, more thoroughly enforced, or more universally respected than in Great Britain. It would be difficult to exaggerate the barbarity or the wastefulness of the slaughter of wild creatures when heavy with young, so harmless, so interesting, and so useful as these, by the destruction of two lives for half the proper value of one, and that one saved only half the time. If the law of humanity does not terminate with humanity, and can be said to extend to those lower orders of creation that minister in their humble way to human enjoyment, surely such a practice as this can find no excuse or palliation. The repression of it ought not to be the subject of a moment's debate between Christian nations, if it requires their mutual action. the case does not rest principally upon sentimental or humanitarian considerations. These animals, as has been pointed out, are a large and valuable property, an established and proper source of public and private revenue and of useful industry, all soon to perish unless the protection which humanity demands can be extended to them. Why should they not receive it?

But

It is said that the government is prevented from discharging this obvious duty, because the sea is free; that no nation can undertake to close the ocean against the ships of any other nation, nor to exercise over them, beyond three miles from the coast, any paramount jurisdiction. This general proposition will not be questioned. The Secretary of State, in his correspondence with the British government on this subject, has undertaken to maintain that these waters are not, as between that country and the United States, a part of the high or open sea; that by the former treaty between Great Britain and Russia, a right of jurisdiction over them was reserved to the latter country, and was conceded and acquiesced in by the former; and that the same right was virtually set forth in the treaty of 1824 between Russia and the United States. The British government, while denying this conclusion, admits that whatever right of this sort Russia had under that treaty as against Great Britain passed to the United States when they purchased from Russia the territory to which it attached. It is not proposed in these observations, nor would it be within their limit, to attempt to restate the argument of Mr. Blaine on this point. It is presented with great ability, fulness, and clearness, and there seems to be nothing left to be added in either particular. It depends principally upon historical evidence, which must be closely examined to be understood; and that evidence certainly tends very strongly to support the result that is claimed by the Secretary. If in this position he is right, it is the end of the case. Because it brings these waters, as against Great Britain at least, within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, not by their geo

graphical situation alone, but by the virtual provisions of the treaties among the high contracting powers concerned.

But suppose that upon this question Mr. Blaine is wrong and Lord Salisbury is right, and that the waters between the mainland and the Pribyloff Islands outside the three-mile limit are to be regarded as a part of the open sea. In what does the freedom of the sea consist? What is the use of it that individual enterprise is authorized to make, under that international law which is only the common consent of civilization? Is it the legitimate pursuit of its own business, or the wanton destruction of the valuable interests of nations? If the government of the United States is restrained by any principle of law from protecting itself and its citizens against this great loss, it must be because the Canadian ship-owners have a right to inflict it. That is to say, that these acts, prohibited by American law, unlawful to Canadians wherever territorial jurisdiction exists, which would be speedily made unlawful within their own territory if any seals existed there, and which are wanton and destructive everywhere, become lawful and right if done in the open sea, and are therefore a proper incident to the freedom of the sea. The clear statement of this proposition refutes it, in the minds of all who are capable of a sense of justice, and able to discriminate between right and wrong. The freedom of the sea is the right to pass and repass upon it without hinderance or molestation, in the pursuit of all honest business and pleasure, and it extends no further. It never authorizes injury to the property or just rights of others, which are as sacred at sea as on shore. This colony of seals, mak