boundary was made by Sir J. Pauncefote on the 18th April in a Memorandum in which he stated that, in view of the wide divergence of views existing on the subject of the Alaska-Canadian boundary, the Dominion Government fear that the suggestion to proceed with the demarcation under the Convention of 1892 would lead to no result. They are, however, prepared to agree that a provisional line should be fixed without prejudice to the claims of either party at the watershed of the first summit north of Dyea. Such a provisional boundary would be at a distance of considerably more than 10 leagues from the coast". In answering this Memorandum, on the 9th May, Mr. Day stated: „In consenting to the temporary marking of the boundary-line in the method just indicated, this Government desires it to be distinctly understood, on the part of both Governments, that this arrangement is not to be construed as affecting in any manner rights under existing Treaties for the ultimate consideration and establishment of the boundary-line in question." | When, therefore, the Joint High Commission met in August 1898 to discuss the question, it was clearly understood on both sides that the line was to be determined in accordance with the spirit and intent" of the Treaty, without restriction, the rights of both parties having been fully and distinctly reserved whenever any question of the interpretation or application of the Treaty was discussed, and the fact of such reservation expressly recognized on both sides. || It has already been fully explained why no question as to the interpretation of the Treaty was raised by either party until 1885, and that on the first occasion when the discussion of the matter was approached, Her Majesty's Government gave distinct notice that they entirely disavowed the correctness of the line shown on the maps to which the United States' Government appealed.

In view of these facts Her Majesty's Government are fairly entitled to claim that as a settlement of the question cannot be reached diplomatically, the interpretation of the Treaty and its application to the facts ascertained by the survey should be submitted unreservedly to an impartial Tribunal, without any such restrictions as were contained in the Venezuelan Treaty, and in proposing to allow, as provided by that instrument, continuous adverse possession for fifty years, if such can be proved, to override Treaty right, they have made a distinct concession to the United States. They do not, of course, admit that there has been any such adverse possession, by way either of exercise of jurisdiction or of political control, and if the United States' citizens have settled recently at the head of the Lynn Canal, they have done so in the full knowledge, as given in the documents inclosed in President Cleveland's

Message to Congress of the 2nd March, 1889, that they were settling in
disputed territory, and Her Majesty's Government are unable to see any
reason why such settlement should receive further or greater recognition
and protection than the United States' Government considered should be
accorded to British subjects who had settled in the area in dispute bet-
ween this country and Venezuela. || It is not necessary to discuss in de-
tail each of the various points advanced in Mr. Choate's communication
in favour of the United States' interpretation of the Treaty. Facts and
arguments of equal cogency can be advanced on the other side by Her
Majesty's Government, and they are all points which can be submitted
to an Arbitration Tribunal under the Rules laid down in the Venezuelan
Treaty, and unless there are other facts and circumstances upon which
the United States' Government rely, but which might be excluded from
the consideration of the Tribunal by these Rules, Mr. Choate has not,
so far as can be seen, advanced any reason to warrant Her Majesty's
Government in departing from the view expressed in my note of the
1st July, that there is nothing in the terms of the Venezuelan Treaty
,,which is inapplicable or which would be inconsistent with an equitable
solution of the Alaskan controversy". || The question immediately under
discussion is whether or not the dispute as to the boundary should be
referred to arbitration, and it is difficult to understand why the length
of time during which the rival claims to disputed territory have been
matters of controversy should form an element to be taken into considera-
tion in that connection. If it be desirable on other grounds to employ
the assistance of an impartial Tribunal as the best means of terminating
the dispute, the length of the period of previous controversy appears to
be immaterial. The excercise of the rights of sovereignty within the
area in dispute by control of the Indian tribes and establishment of ad-
ministrative machinery therein was, as the United States' Government
are aware, one of the principal grounds put forward by Great Britain
in support of her right to the territory claimed by Venezuela, and such
grounds, if put forward by the United States' Government with reference
to the Alaska boundary, would, no doubt, be fully considered by a Tri-
bunal of Arbitration, and if found to be established for the period pres-
cribed in the Treaty, might settle the controversy in their favour.
it is not admitted that such control was exercised by the United States.
until very recently, and after due notice of the claim of Her Majesty's
Government, and in these circumstances, the fact of its exercise appears
to be a reason in favour of, rather than an obstacle to, arbitration. ||
The fact that the starting-point in the present controversy is a Treaty,

But

and that, in the dispute with Venezuela, the claims on either side were based on discovery and occupation, cannot, in the opinion of Her Majesty's Government, constitute any essential difference between the two cases. The Rules agreed to by Great Britain and the United States for the guidance of the Tribunal were intended to provide for the admission in argument of every ground upon which an equitable claim to disputed territory may be based. As has already been pointed out, it is the Government of the United States who have imported into the present discussion other considerations than that of strict Treaty right, and I trust that on full consideration they will not continue to object to these considerations being tested by Rules which, with their approval, and with the consent of Her Majesty's Government, have been applied to a similar case. || If, however, the United States' Government still consider that the terms of the Venezuelan Treaty are in any respect inadequate to provide for an equitable settlement of the present controversy, such suggestions as they have to offer will receive attentive consideration from Her Majesty's Government. || You are authorized to read this despatch to Mr. Hay, and to leave a copy of it with him if he should so desire.

Salisbury.

Nr. 13216. VEREINIGTE STAATEN. - Der Botschafter in London an den englischen Minister des Ausw. Historische Darstellung der Streitfrage. Einwände gegen das Schiedsgericht.

American Embassy, London, January 22, 1900. (January 22.)*) My Lord, || Your Lordship's despatch to Mr. Tower of the 14th October, 1899, has been placed in my hands, with instructions to respond to your Lordship's courteous request to make further suggestions in reply bearing upon the question under discussion. || The United States' Government is not to be understood as refusing to submit to the adjudication of an independent Tribunal the real question at issue between us in respect to the Alaska boundary. On the contrary, as I understand it, the present discussion contemplates the probability of such a submission. As I stated in my note of the 9th August**), to which your Lordship's note to Mr. Tower is an indirect reply, the President was prevented by the considerations there stated from assenting to the proposal that the

*) Die eingeklammerten Daten ergeben das Empfangsdatum. Red.

**) The terms of this note were similar to the communication made by Mr. Choate on the 2nd August and recorded in the despatch to Mr. Tower of that date (Nr. 13214).

Venezuela Treaty, as it stands, should be applied here, and that the subject matter to be adjudicated and the terms and conditions by which its action should be limited ought, if possible, first to be decided. || The Venezuela Treaty was calculated, and, as the result has shown, well and properly calculated, to enable the Tribunal to make by compromise a boundary-line in respect of which there has never been an agreement between the parties, and to evolve a fair adjustment of their respective claims out of the facts of discovery, occupation, and other historical circumstances in which their dispute as to the boundary had been involved for more than a century, during which the question had been always open. But in the present instance there is an express agreement of the parties defining the boundary which has in the Treaty of 1825 subsisted ever since, practically without dispute as to its interpretation on the principal point. A clear and distinct interpretation on this point was put upon it by both parties in the written negotiations which resulted in the meeting of their minds upon it. This interpretation was regarded by both parties as vital and very important to their respective interests. It was publicly declared and acted upon by Russia from the date of the Treaty until she conveyed to the United States in 1867, and all that time, at any rate, it was acquiesced in by Great Britain. The United States continued publicly to maintain and act upon the same interpretation, with the acquiescence of Great Britain, confessedly until 1885, and, as we claim, until 1898, when a new and wholly different interpretation on this main point is put forward by Great Britain. The two interpretations thus presented are absolutely distinct, and are not involved in any confused or doubtful historical explorations. One or the other is right, and can and should he ascertained and determined so to be, to the exclusion of the other, and neither party wishes to acquire an inch of the territory rightly belonging to the other. Surely the Tribunal which is to pass upon such a question should not be enabled to compromise it, but should be required simply to decide it. If the difference thus raised is to be compromised, it should be compromised by the parties themselves, so that they can know exactly what they are doing. I have spoken of the interpretation of the Treaty upon the principal point. By this, I mean the question whether the strip of coast (,,la lisière de côte") which, by the Treaty, is to belong to Russia, runs around the shores of the inlets or across their mouths the former construction necessarily excluding Great Britain from the salt water at all points to a distance measured by the crests of the mountains parallel to the coast, if there are such, or by 10 leagues in the absence of such moun

tains, while the latter construction as necessarily gives to Great Britain so much of each inlet as extends above a point crossed by a line drawn from the crest of the mountains nearest to the coast. This is a question of construction between the two Parties, to be determined in the usual way by the language of the Treaty interpreted in the light of the acts of the Parties before and after, and including any claim of either that the other is estopped to dispute the construction which it asserts. It is eminently a question for jurists to determine judicially, and it was with this view that the United States, through its Commissioners in the Joint High Commission, offered to submit it to a perfectly independent Tribunal, to be composed of six learned jurists, three to be named by each Party, and a majority of them to decide. It is not easy to see how any judicial Tribunal could compromise it, unless expressly commissioned to do so, as in the Venezuela Case. They must decide it one way or the other. This is the question which we maintain was never raised by Her Majesty's Government until 1898. Russia and the United States claimed the former interpretation from first to last; Great Britain realized its intrinsic importance from the beginning, but never disputed our interpretation, which was open, public, and uniform. These features of the case now presented differentiate it radically from the Venezuela Case. Your Lordship states that ,,no question as to the interpretation of the Treaty was raised by either Party until 1885". It would be more in harmony with my view of the situation to say that Russia and the United States uniformly and publicly asserted an interpretation of the Treaty which Great Britain did not dispute. || But assuming this fundamental and very important question, to be decided either by an independent Tribunal or by agreement of the Parties, another question remains still to be determined one of great importance and which has always been open namely, the exact location of the poundary-line according to the spirit and meaning of the Treaty and its precise distance at every point from the coast. This is a question of no small difficulty, growing out of the alternative provisions of the IIIrd and IV th Articles of the Treaty, by the former of which the width of the strip or the distance of the British possessions from the coast is to be measured to the crests of the parallel mountains, but by the latter, if no such mountains are found within 10 leagues, then by that distance or by a distance never exceeding that. || This minor or secondary question might, of course, also be referred to an arbitration; but it is obviously not, like the first, a question for jurists. It would properly be disposed of by a joint survey. And it is a question of such minor importance, after the first question