Foreign Relations of the United States, 1894, Appendix I, Chinese-Japanese War, Enforcement of Regulation Respective to Fur Seals, Mosquito Territory, Affairs at Bluefields, Claim of Antonio Maximo Mora, Import Duties on Certain Products of Colombia, Haiti, and Venezuela, Affairs in the Samoan Islands

Mr. Gresham to Sir Julian Pauncefote.

Department of State,
Washington, April 20, 1894.

Excellency: I have had the honor to receive your note of the 11th instant, in response to mine of the 10th, relating partly to the inability of the two Governments to agree upon a reasonable and mutually satisfactory modus vivendi for the protection of seal life in Bering Sea and the North Pacific, and partly to certain details of the pending British bill to give effect to the award of the Paris Tribunal of Arbitration.

I note your expression of a desire to correct what you regard as a misapprehension touching the abandonment of the proposals for a modus vivendi, and your statement that you have no recollection of Her Majesty’s Government having refused to assent to any reasonable proposal on the subject.

Now that the timely enactment by the United States of a statute to execute, on its part, the terms of the Paris award, and the adoption by Her Majesty’s Government to the same end of legislation which I trust will be equally effective to give due force to the joint obligations of that award, have gone far toward removing the occasion for the proposed modus vivendi, consideration of the causes which led to the abandonment of negotiations for that object becomes retrospective and important only as affording a clearer appreciation of what has taken place. In this sense I understand your present statements, and am happy to contribute my share, so far as I may, to that desirable result.

Up to the time it was dropped, the negotiations for a modus had passed through various successive stages. Several proposals put forward by me, in conference, and which you regarded as reasonable and fair, when referred to your Government, were met by objections or counter proposals necessitating renewed efforts on our part to seek a basis for common agreement.

You will recall that on March 23, and in view of the dilatory causes which even then appeared to tend to defeat an agreement for the renewal of last year’s modus vivendi with such amendment as was made necessary by the Paris award, I suggested that it might be better to cease efforts to reach a temporary understanding and proceed at once with all dispatch in obtaining needed legislation. Your instructions, communicated to me the same day, contemplated the continuance of negotiations for a modus, coincidently with the adoption of concurrent legislation, and to this I consented, but not without misgivings as to the outcome. Under these circumstances we proceeded to draw up the arrangement of March 24, providing:

1. That Her Britannic Majesty’s Government should establish and enforce the close season in the North Pacific, including Bering Sea, which is prescribed by the Paris award, viz, during the months of May, June, and July, but not further south than the forty-second parallel.

2. That similar steps should be taken by the United States Government, under the then existing act of Congress.

3. That the two Governments should proceed forthwith with the necessary legislation to carry out the whole of the award, and that such legislation should be put in force immediately on the expiration of the close season—that is to say, on the 1st of August.

4. That if, owing to any unexpected delay, such legislation should not be completed so as to be put in force on the 1st of August, the close season should continue for such further period as the two Governments might think necessary for effecting that purpose.

5. That, as soon as the necessary legislation for carrying out of the whole of the award should be completed, a convention should be entered into by the two powers for the settlement of the Bering Sea claims.

6. That the two powers should immediately invite Russia and Japan to negotiate with them a quadruple convention for the adoption of international regulations for the preservation of the fur-seal species, and applicable within the sovereignty of the four powers as well as on the high seas.

You will recall the importance I attached to the insertion of the fourth proviso of the foregoing proposal, and your acquiescence therein, in our conference on the morning of March 24. You then stated that you saw no objection to such a provision; indeed, you thought it would be fair, and you said you had reason to believe that Lord Kimberley would agree to it.

Upon this understanding you reduced the arrangement to writing, including my amendment, and the same afternoon, upon learning the President’s acquiescence in its terms, you telegraphed its text to Lord Kimberley.

The proposal so accepted by us in the name of our respective Governments, and which we justly regarded as a final disposition of the matter, proved to be no exception to the general dilatory course of the negotiation theretofore, inasmuch as a day or two later you submitted a counter proposition on the part of Her Majesty’s Government, modifying the essential terms suggested by me and which you had been pleased to regard as reasonable and fair. Your present note recites that counter proposition, being to the effect that “if the British legislation should be completed by the 1st of August the seas should be open to British sealers whether, at that date, the legislation of the United States were completed or not.”

The President’s objection to the counter proposition lay, not so much, as you understand, on the ground that it implied a possible tardiness on the part of the United States in perfecting their legislation (a needless, gratuitous implication, be it observed, in view of the interest no less than the good faith which prompted immediate legislation on our part) as because it was one-sided and tantamount to a rejection of the stipulation which I had advanced as indispensable.

Thereupon you brought forward another proposition similarly one-sided, in that it provided for the continuance of the modus only as regards the vessels, subjects, or citizens of the power which might not by the 31st of July have carried out by legislation its obligations under the Paris award.

All efforts in this direction having so far proved abortive, my reasonable proposal of March 24 having been refused and the opening of the sealing season being close at hand, immediate action was forced upon the President, and I was directed by him to acquaint you with the purpose of the Government to proceed at once with legislation which, on its part, would fully meet the obligations of the Paris award. How abundantly able this Government was to carry out those obligations is shown by the passage through both Houses of Congress of the bill which was introduced in the Senate on April 2, and became a law by the President’s approval only four days later.

The amended British bill for the enforcement of the Paris award, which this Government is pleased to learn has passed both Houses of Parliament, and the explicit and gratifying assurances of the course to be pursued by Her Majesty’s Government, have allayed the apprehensions which I expressed to you touching the efficiency of the measure as it was originally prepared and submitted to this Government for its consideration.

I have, etc.,

W. Q. Gresham.