No. 266.
Mr. Hoffman to Mr. Frelinghuysen
.
St. Petersburg , March 14, 1882. (Received April 3.)
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of a circular of the Treasury Department of July 30 last, upon the subject of fishing, &c., in the Behring Sea and in the Sea of Okhotsk.
I am able to give the Department some little information upon this subject, derived nearly four years ago from Mr. Charles H. Smith, for many years a resident of Vladivostok, and at one time our consul or vice-consul at that port.
A glance at the map will show that the Kurile Islands are dotted across the entrance to the Sea of Okhotsk the entire distance from Japan on the south to the southernmost cape of Kamtschatka on the north.
[Page 450]In the time when Russia owned the whole of these islands, her representatives in Siberia claimed that the Sea of Okhotsk was a mare clausum, for that Russian jurisdiction extended from island to island and over two marine leagues of intermediate sea from Japan to Kamtschatka.
But about five years ago Russia ceded the, southern group of these islands to Japan, in return for the half of the island of Sahahis, which belonged to that power.
As soon as this was done it became impossible for the Siberian authorities to maintain their claim. My informant was not aware that this claim had ever been seriously made at St. Petersburg.
The best whaling grounds are found in the bays and inlets of the Sea of Okhotsk. Into these the Russian Government does not permit foreign whalers to enter, upon the ground that the entrance to them, from headland to headland, is less than two marine leagues wide. But while they permit no foreign whalers to penetrate into these bays, they avail themselves of their wealth very little. The whole privilege of whaling in those waters is a monopoly owned by an unimportant company, which employs two or three sailing schooners only, the trying and other laborious work being done at their stations on shore.
Referring to my No. 44, of June, 1878, I have the honor to add that Baron Stoeckl told me in conversation last winter that we failed to make a fishing treaty with Russia in 1868 principally on account of the vested interests of this company.
Mr. C. H. Smith now resides at Great Falls, N. H., and would be glad, I am sure, to put his information at the service of the Department.
I am, sir, &c.,