Mr. Bayard to Mr. Gresham.
London, April 4, 1894. (Received April 13.)
Sir: I had the honor to address yon under date of 30th ultimo, and now inclose copies of your telegram of March 31 and of my telegraphic reply to the same of the 3d instant, both relating to the proposed enforcement of the Bering Sea regulations.
The sentence of your above telegram, “Proposition British Government communicated by British ambassador to-day not accepted,” was not quite clear to me in its meaning, nor was I able in my interview of April 2 with Lord Kimberley to obtain from him an entirely satisfactory explanation.
The action of this Government, however, in fixing May 1 as the date for the operation of the new law for enforcing the fur-sealing regulations, would appear to make unnecessary any ad interim arrangement.
I have the honor to inclose copies of the proposed British act* as published here yesterday, and which (as I was informed) was telegraphed verbatim to the United States, with the purpose probably of procuring identity of legislative expression.
Lord Kimberley showed me a copy of the bill introduced by Mr. McCreary in the House of Representatives and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations, which copy had been much interlined and amended, and as it did not accurately follow the phraseology of the regulations, as.” determined and established” by the tribunal of Arbitration at Paris, I drew your attention in my last telegram to what I conceive to be of great importance—that we should incorporate and adopt in our law to enforce these regulations the full and precise language employed by the arbitrators.
The more I consider the logical and necessary results of a complete enforcement of these regulations as decreed, the more plainly does it appear to me that profitable pelagic fur-seal fishing is inconsistent therewith.
This, of course, is equally obvious to the British-American sealers, and the strain upon their sense of honorable obligation and legal duty may be estimated by expressions in the parliament at Ottawa, and the departure of there sealing vessels with full knowledge of the regulations of the arbitration and the pendency of legislation to penalize their breach.
The telegraphic reports announce the passage, yesterday, of the bill in the Senate, and I suppose speedy action will similarly follow in the House of Representatives.
I have, etc.,
- See Senate Ex. Doc. No. 67, Fifty-third Congress, third session, page 83.↩