ALMOST UNGUARDED

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 87, 10 October 1933, Page 6

ALMOST UNGUARDED

A GREAT BOUNDARY

CANADA AND THE U.S.A.

President Roosevelt's recent reference to 'the Canadian-United States border as a boundary without fortifications, emphasises the' unusual condition which exists along this 3000-mile strip of land. Aside from patrols at strategic points of Royal Mounties, Customs, and immigration officials, and boats of the Department of Fisheries on the waterways, it is unguarded. However, it took more than a century of negotiations to arrive at this happy state of affairs, says an English paper.

The fixing of the boundaries, begun in 1783, was not concluded until 1908, and, although there were during the negotiations one or two instances of local uprisings between tho settlers on both sides of the line, the final issue was in no case due to a display of force. Because of the faultiness of the only available maps and the ignorance or the negotiators regarding the topography of the country under dispute, the marking of the boundaries was an extremely complicated: affair.

The most dangerous of the frontier disputes was the settlement of the boundary between Maine, New Brunswick; and Quebec. This was fixed by the treaty of 1783,; but not completely settled for more than 50 years. The treaty named as the boundaries of the United States such locations as "the north-west angle of Nova Scotia," namely, the angle formed "by a line drawn north from the source of the St. Croix River" and the islands in the Bay of Passamaquoddy, which belonged to his Britannic Majesty. The identity of the St. Croix River was decided by a Commission in 1798; that of the islands by an agreement with the British Commissioner, Thomas-Barclay, of New Brunswick, in 1817, and the "angle" bydirect negotiations between Daniel Webster, American Secretary of State, and Lord Ashburton in 1842.

In these negotiations the King of the Netherlands was called upon to arbitrate. Although his award was based on thorough investigations, Maine did not agree to it, and the difficulties culminated in the "Bestook War" of 1838-39. For this affair the President was authorised to call out the militia, but hostilities were averted. CONFLICTING CLAIMS. Difficulties also entered into the fixing of the boundaries west of Niagara. France first claimed the Mississippi basin by virtue of the explorations of La Salle; English fur traders claimed the North-west. With the cession of Quebec in 1763 the situation chang"ed, England claiming what is now the North Central' States. : The North-west Ordinance of 1787 envisioned the-ambi-tions of the young Eepublic in the vacant spaces of the West. Lewis and Clark, Gray; and Astor carried the flag to the Pacific.

The electioneering <!ry in . 1844 of "Fifty-four' Forty or Fight!" typified the spirit of tho time, but wiser counsel prevailed. Negotiations were entered into in 1846, and it was decided that the boundary should follow the fortyninth parallel from the; . Bockies to '.'the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island, and thence southerly throiigh the. middle of the said channel and of Fuca's Strait to the Pacific Ocean;"

The many waterways along the border—the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence, St. John, Eichelieu, and Detroit Elvers—all have caused many difficulties in the boundary question. To solve them Elihu Eoot, Secretary of State, nncl James Bryce, Ambassador Extraordinary a Washington, brought about a treaty which created the International Joint Commission. This Commission, which first met in 1012, consisted of six members, three appointed by the President of tho United States and three by the King on the recommendation of the Governor-General in Council of Canada.