sea extending in its widest part some 600 or 700 miles beyond the mainland of Alaska, and clearly under the law of nations a part of the great sea and open to all nations. Lord Salisbury's government, from the beginning to the end of the controversy, sustained the rights of Canada as a portion of the British empire. After very protracted and troublesome negotiations it was agreed to refer the international question in dispute to a court of arbitration, in which Sir John Thompson, prime minister of Canada, was one of the British arbitrators. The arbitrators decided in favour of the British contention that the United States had no jurisdiction in Bering Sea outside of the three miles limit, and at the same time made certain regulations to restrict the wholesale slaughter of fur-bearing seals in the North Pacific Ocean. In 1897 two commissioners, appointed by the governments of the United States and Canada, awarded the sum of $463,454 as compensation to Canada for the damages sustained by the fishermen of British Columbia, while engaged in the lawful prosecution of their industry on that portion of the Bering Sea declared to be open to all nations. This sum was paid in the summer of 1898 by the United States.

In 1897 the Canadian government succeeded in obtaining the consent of the governments of Great Britain and the United States to the appointment of a joint high commission to settle various questions in dispute between Canada and the United States. Canada was represented on this commission by Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Sir Richard Cartwright, Sir Louis Davies, and Mr John Charlton, M.P.; Newfoundland by Sir James Winter; the United States by Messieurs C. W. Fairbanks, George Gray, J. W. Foster, Nelson Dingley Jr., J. A. Kasson, and T. Jefferson Coolidge. The eminent jurist, Baron Herschell, who had been lord chancellor in the last Gladstone ministry, was chosen chairman of this commission, which met in the historic city of Quebec on several occasions from the 23rd August until the 10th October, 1898, and subsequently

at Washington from November until the 20th February, 1899, when it adjourned. Mr Dingley died in January and was replaced by Mr Payne, and Lord Herschell also unhappily succumbed to the effects of an accident soon after the close of the sittings of the commission. In an eulogy of this eminent man in the Canadian house of commons, the Canadian prime minister stated that during the sittings of the commission "he fought for Canada not only with enthusiasm, but with conviction and devotion." England happily in these modern times has felt the necessity of giving to the consideration of Canadian interests the services of her most astute and learned statesmen and diplomatists.

This commission was called upon to consider a number of international questions-the Atlantic and inland fisheries, the Alaska boundary, the alien labour law, the bonding privilege, the seal fishery in the Bering Sea, reciprocity of trade in certain products of the two countries, and other minor issues. For the reasons given in a previous part of this chapter (page 269), when referring to the commercial policy of the Laurier government, reciprocity was no longer the all-important question to be discussed, though the commissioners were desirous of making fiscal arrangements with respect to lumber, coal, and some other Canadian products for which there is an increasing demand in the markets of the United States. The long and earnest discussions of the commission on the various questions before them were, however, abruptly terminated by the impossibility of reaching a satisfactory conclusion with respect to the best means of adjusting the vexed question of the Alaska boundary, which had become of great international import in consequence of the discovery of gold in the territory of Alaska and the district of Yukon in Canada.

The dispute between Great Britain and the United States has arisen as to the interpretation to be given to the AngloRussian treaty of 1825, which was made forty-two years before Russia sold her territorial rights in Alaska to the United States,

that sale being subject of course to the conditions of the treaty in question. Under the third article of this treaty1-the governing clause of the contract between England and Russia-the boundary line between Canada and Alaska commences at the south end of Prince of Wales Island, thence runs north through Portland Channel to the fifty-sixth degree of north latitude, thence follows the summit of the mountains situated parallel to the coast of the continent, to one hundred and forty-one west longitude and thence to the frozen ocean. That part of the line between fifty-six north latitude and one hundred and forty-one west longitude is where the main dispute arises. Great Britain on behalf of Canada contends that, by following the summits of the mountains between these two points, the true boundary would cross Lynn Canal, about half way between the headlands and tide-water at the head of the canal, and leave both Skagway and Dyea-towns built up chiefly by United States citizens— within British territory. The contention of Great Britain always has been that the boundary should follow the general contour of the coast line and not the inlets to their head waters. On the other hand the United States contend that the whole

1 The following is the article in full: "The line of demarcation between the possessions of the high contracting parties upon the coast of the continent and the islands of America to the north-west, shall be drawn in the following manner: commencing from the southernmost point of the island called Prince of Wales Island, which point lies in the parallel of fifty-four degrees forty minutes north latitude, and between the one hundred and thirty-first and the one hundred and thirty-third degrees of west longitude, the said line shall ascend to the north along the channel called Portland Channel as far as the point of the continent where it strikes the fifty-sixth degree of north latitude. From this last-mentioned point the line of demarcation shall follow the summit of the mountains situated parallel to the coast as far as the point of intersection of the one hundred and fortyfirst degree of west longitude (of the same meridian); and finally from the said point of intersection of the one hundred and forty-first degree in its prolongation as far as the frozen ocean, shall form the limit between the Russian and British possessions on the continent of America to the northwest."