acknowledged the receipt of the superintendent's letter, stated that the matter had been submitted to his government and was then under consideration. With this letter the correspondence ended, and the Canadian Government took no part in the survey, which was conducted by the United States alone. THE DALL-DAWSON DISCUSSION. What is termed the Dall-Dawson Conferences" has been given such importance in the British Case that it has been deemed proper to complete the correspondence which is there only partially produced. a The meeting of these two scientists was brought about at the time of the sessions of the Atlantic Fisheries Commission. The object has been so fully discussed by Ambasador Choate and the British Secretaries for Foreign Affairs that a reference to that correspondence need only to be supplemented by two remarks. In Lord Lansdowne's despatch of August 18, 1902, reference is made to what appears in the "Protocols of the Commission" during the Fisheries negotiations of 1888. His Lordship must have intended to refer to the minutes kept by the British members of that Commission, as the officially signed Protocols of the Joint High Commission were communicated in full to the Senate of the United States at the time the Fisheries Convention was submitted to that body, and printed as an Executive Document (see S. Ex. Doc. 113, 50th Cong. pp. 117126). An examination of these will show that no mention is made of the Dall-Dawson Conferences" or of the Alaskan boundary question. This fact confirms the position taken by the United States that the Fisheries Commission professed no authority to consider that question, and whatever was done by its members was purely extra-official and was not intended to commit either government. It will be seen from the following extract that Dr. Dall fully understood the character and effect of his meeting with Dr. Dawson: "It was announced and agreed that the meeting was entirely informal; that neither party had any delegated powers whatever, and that its object was simply the arrival at a consensus of opinion as to some reasonable and business-like way of settling upon a line satisfactory to both countries, and the most practicable means of demarkating the line if one was accepted." It cannot seriously be claimed that what Ibid., pp. 135, 150, 159. a U. S. Counter Case, App. pp. 94-113. was said at such a meeting could be regarded as official, or that any government would adopt such a method of making its position known upon so important a question as a boundary line, if it was held to be in dispute. THE RECIPROCITY CONFERENCE OF 1892. A brief reference is made in the British Case" to the reciprocity conference which was held in Washington in February 1892, but in view of the importance attached to it by the British Foreign Office in the discussion with Mr. Choate, the subject seems to call for an explicit. statement on the part of the United States. The correspondence respecting that conference will be found in the Appendix to this Counter Case.' It is asserted by Great Britain that a distinct statement of the British claims to the boundary, substantially as now presented, was made by the Canadian delegates at that conference. The correspondence shows that the main object had in view by the Dominion Government in holding the conference was to discuss commercial reciprocity, and that all other questions mentioned were of slight importance compared with that matter. The subject of the Alaskan boundary was presented, but from the same point of view as in 1872-8 and in 1886-8, to the effect that a marking of the line was desirable; and out of the conference grew the convention of July 22, 1892, providing for a preliminary survey "with a view to the ascertainment of the facts and data necessary to the permanent delimitation of said boundary line"; a survey similar to the one which had been considered in 1888, but in which Canada, though invited, failed to participate. From the American reports of the conference it is manifest that there was no discussion of divergent views, and that "no assertion was hinted at of a British claim to the heads of inlets or of any rights on Lynn Canal." But there is other evidence to establish this fact. The correspondence between Lord Salisbury and Mr. Choate shows that when the subject of the Alaskan boundary was under discussion in the Joint High Commission at Quebec in 1898, a map was introduced by the British commissioners with the boundary drawn upon it, giving the Portland Canal peninsula and the heads of all the inlets to Canada; and that an American member of the commission, who had also participated in "p. 38. United States Counter Case, Ap pp. 114-123; 135, 151, 161. the conference of 1892, stated that the view then advanced “was the first distinct statement of the British claim." The only qualification made by the British commissioners upon this statement was that the claim was put forth in the instructions to the British commissioners, copies of which had been sent to the Secretary of State of the United States on August 1, 1898.' A further proof from British sources that no divergence of views respecting the interpretation of the treaty of 1825 was developed in the reciprocity conference of February 1892, is to be found in the Debates in the Canadian Parliament. Upon the return of the delegates to Ottawa, the speech from the throne of February 25, 1892, announced the results of the conference and among other things said, "an amicable understanding was arrived at respecting the steps to be taken for the establishment of the boundary of Alaska." During the debate in the Senate on the speech from the throne Honorable Richard W. Scott, the leader of the Liberal party of the Dominion, who had acted as Commissioner of Crown Lands when the proposition for a survey was under discussion between the two governments in 1873, and therefore well informed on the subject, spoke as follows: It is quite true that an amicable understanding was arrived at respecting the steps to be taken for the establishment of the boundary of Alaska. It was not necessary to go to Washington to discuss that. The question has been discussed in despatches for twenty years. There was no dispute as to the boundary of Alaska. * It was settled in the treaty of 1825. The line was defined but not marked out. There is no dispute as to where it goes. It commences at Portland Channel and extends along the summit of the mountains, where these mountains do not extend more than 10 marine leagues inwards, and if they are more than 10 marine leagues, then 10 leagues are the limit to a certain meridian, and from that point it is a straight line to the Frozen Ocean. No doubt it is a very expensive boundary. The expensive part of it is, of course, the fringe of land that runs along the coast up to a particular part where the meridian runs, because it is entirely a matter of cost; I have never heard of any dispute as to the interpretation to be given to the treaty, because the treaty is plain and speaks for itself. c * * This view of the state of the boundary question in 1892 and of the interpretation of the treaty should commend itself to the consideration of the Tribunal, from the fact that the distinguished statesman who advanced it in Parliament is now a member of the Canadian Cabinet. a U. S. Counter Case, App., pp. 154–5. b Ibid., p. 154. Ibid., pp. 167-8. THE ALLEGED BRITISH PROTESTS. An effort is made in the British Case to show that protests have been made to the Government of the United States at various times against its real or supposed claim to the boundary line. Noticing them in the order of time, the first advanced is the representation made respecting the report of Lieutenant Schwatka of a reconnaissance in 1883 conducted by him in Alaska and adjoining British territory. The report was published in full with maps in 1885. From this it appears that he was sent by the general commanding one of the military departments on the Pacific coast, to examine into the condition of the Indians of the Territory of Alaska, and to report upon the resources of the country in view of possible military operations against the tribes." His instructions contemplated no survey of the boundary and his report does not develop any intention or attempt to do so. Two years after the report appeared the British minister in Washington enclosed a memorandum in a note to the Secretary of State, without making any comment upon it, and added that "he (Schwatka) traversed British territory for a considerable distance without any intimation having been given the British authorities of his intention to do so;" but he stated that "no doubt had their acquiescence been asked it would not have been refused." The chief allegation of the memorandum was that in his report he had indicated Perrier Pass "as defining the international boundary." The statement which gave rise to this assertion was, "the country beyond Perrier Pass, in the Kotusk mountains, lies in British territory." The context shows that there was no intention to define the boundary, and this was so apparent that the minister did not feel called upon to make any comment. His note was regarded as of so little importance that it did not evoke a reply from the Secretary of State, and nothing further was heard of the incident until after the adjournment of the Joint High Commission in 1899, when the subject of the boundary became a matter of discussion between Lord Salisbury and Mr. Choate. This is styled "Canada's Protest" in the British Case." In 1888 the British Minister brought to the notice of the Secretary of Statea rumour that a charter is about to be granted by the authorities of Alaska for certain privileges in a part of that coun try which is claimed by Great Britain," without giving the slightest information as to the locality. Secretary Bayard naturally responded that "the rumour * * * is, as stated by you, certainly vague and indefinite;" that his department had no notice of it; but that he would make inquiry of his colleague, the Secretary of the Interior. In a few days he informed the minister that the official named had no information on the subject, and there the correspondence closed." This is termed "a further protest of Her Majesty's Government.“” In June, 1891, the British minister in Washington addressed the Secretary of State a note in which he inserted an extract from the last report of the Superintendent of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, stating that, in accordance with recent enactments of Congress, a preliminary survey of the Alaska boundary had been made, and described the line very much as it had been drawn in the Coast Survey map published by the Secretary of State at the time of the cession in 1867, and as it had been marked on every map issued by the Government of the United States sin e that date. The minister followed the extract with the following statement: "The Dominion Government have expressed a desire that the Government of the United States may be reminded that the question of the boundary at this point is, at the present time, the subject of some difference of opinion and of considerable correspondence, and that the actual boundary line can only be properly determined by an International Commission." As the extract described the line from the southern extremity of Prince of Wales Island to the Arctic Ocean, a distance of 1,400 miles, it was difficult to determine the locality referred to as "at this point.” The survey was the one which grew out of the correspondence initiated by Secretary Bayard in 1885, and in which the Canadian Government had been invited but had failed to participate. The note in 1888 was so vague and indefinite that no reply seems to have been made to it, and neither government again alluded to it until eleven years afterwards, when it was cited by the British chargé in 1902 as evidence of dissent from the claim of the United States to the water boundary along the Portland Canal. This is styled "The British Protest of June, 1891." @ British Case, App., pp. 265–67. British Case, App., p. 268. dIbid., p. 295. |
