Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 July 1890 — THE BEHRING SEA QUESTION. [ARTICLE]

THE BEHRING SEA QUESTION.

Th* Frnldrat Transmits to Congress jthe Correspondence on tbe Matter, The correspondence - between the gomriPcent of the United States and that of Great Britain in regard to the Behring Sea difficulty, laid before Congress yesterday by the President, includes thirty separate papers, beginning with a tetter from Mr. Edwards, first Secretary of Legation and Charge d’Affairs after Minister West’s recall, dated August 24,1889, and closing with one from Secretary Blaine to Sir Julian Paunoefoto, the British Minister, dated July 11. The first letter, dated August 24, 1889, is from Mr. Edwards to Mr. Blaine, and evidently asks for information in regard to the rumored seizure of tho English fishing vessels by American revenue cruisers outside the three-mile limit. Mr. Blaine’s reply was noncommittal, and stated that the same rumors had reached the American State Department* September 12 a further request for information was made. Mr. Blaine, September 14, replied that be had supposed Her Majesty’s government was satisfied of the President’s earnest desire to come to a friendly agreement, and that official instructions to Sir, Julian Paunceforte, the new British Minister, to proceed immediately after his arrival in October to a full discussion of the ques tion, removed all necessity for preliminary correspondence touching its merits. Referring to Mr. Edwards’s question, he says: “A categorical response would have been and still is impracticable—unjust to this government and misleading to the government of Her Majesty. It was therefore the judgment of the President that the whole subject could be more wisely remanded to the formal discussion sq near at hand, which Her Majesty’s government had proposed, and to which the government of the United States had cordially assented. It is proper, however, to add that any instructions sent to Behring Sea at the time of your original request on tbe 24th of August would have failed to reach these waters before the departure of the vessels Of the United States.” Not until the advent of Sir Julian Pauncefote did the correspondence develop concrete qualities, Messrs. Edwards and Blaine having merely parried the question. In his first letter to Sir Julian, January 22, of this year, Mr. Blaine goes over the whole question and says it is the opiaion of the President that the vessela arrested were engaged in a pursuit that was in itself contra bonos mores. Mr. Blaine maintained that Russia had always asserted its claim over Behring Sea, and that it had been internationally recognized; when the United States purs chased Alaska it continued to maintain the claim. He thought England would insist on this policy if an attempt were made to Interfere with her Ceylon pearl fisheries, which extend more than twenty miles beyond the shoreline. February 22d the British minister contended that the catching of seals by British vessels was not contra bonos mores, and that the seizure of British vessels was unjustifiableSeals did hot become property until they were caught, and until American fishermen caught ’em they weren’t entitled to 'em. i Tho British Minister notified Mr. Blaine,) May 23, of a formal protest against the! course of the United States in seizing the British sealers. Three days later Mr. Blaine protested against the encourage mentby the British Government of seal piracy. He asked that sealing by English vessels be prohibited until a settlement could be determined. Under date of June 14, Sir Julian made another protest against tbe seize policy, or any interference with the English sealers. A question of facts takes up a cocsiderable part of the corres*. pondence, beingas to John Quincy Adams’s Interpretation of Federal rigbts in the sea, and whether he conceded Russia’s excln* sive right. The last letter was written by Mr. Blaine from Bor Harbor, last Sunday, and urges any Mieement or understanding with Mr. Phelps can not be recurred to now,- as it was not brought up before or after the change of administrations.