Behring Sea.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 5025, 5 June 1889, Page 3

Behring Sea.

The cablegrams received within the past few days respecting the possibility of a collision between Great Britain and the United States respecting the Behring Sea seal fisheries, make interesting the following communication on the subject, by the San Francisco correspondent of the Auckland Herald. Under date April 7th, ho wrote : “A question that is now troubling both statesmen and sealers is whether Behring Sea is an open or closed sea ? It has been a maritime law of custom that a na> ion can only control a marine league of sea from her shores. In the controversy between the American and Canadian, fishermen the American Government insisted that its fishermen should havo all rights in Canadian waters outside the three mile limit from land In 1872 George Boutwell, the then Secretary of the Treasury, rendered a decision wherein ho held that it was not unlawful to take fur seals in the Behring Sea unless attempted within a marine league from the shore. President Harrison, however, issued a proclamation on March 22nd in which ho warned ‘ All persons against entering the waters of the Behring Sea, within the Dominion of the United States, for tho purpose of violating, &c.’ He also says that ‘‘An Act, approved March 2nd, 1889, provides that section 1936 of tho revised statutes, is hereby declared to include and apply to all the dominions of the United States in tho waters of the Behring Sea.” This virtually declares the Behring Sea to be closed, and that the United States has complete jurisdiction over that portion of it ceded to her by treaty when she purchased Alaska from Russia for the sum of 7,200,000 dollars in grid. This treaty was made at a convention between the United States of America, and His Majesty the Emperor of Russia, for the cession of tho Russian possessions in North America to tho United States, concluded at Washington on March 30th, 1867. Both Brhish and American sealers have been fitted out in larger numbers than usual this season, and are now on their way northward to the forbidden sea. A boundary line drawn across the chart includes in Behring Sea all tho islands that were ceded to America, and also includes the Aleutian Islands, the most western of which is Attn Island. Ehe distance from Attu to Copper Island—tho nearest Russian possession —is 175 miles, and to the Kamtschatka coast it is 370 miles, and it is this largo stretch of sea that is claimed by the Amcricon Government. There are numerous passages through the Aleutian Islands wide enough to allow the largest vessels to pass in or out of Behring Sea, and, from a glance at the map, it would geem that it could hardly be claimed as an enclosed sea.”