Prince Cantacuzene to Mr. Gresham.
Mr. Secretary of State: I have had the honor to receive the note which you were pleased to address me on the 20th of August instant, transmitting to me the declarations and the award of the Tribunal of Arbitration in the matter of the preservation of fur seal as well as the legislative measures taken by the United States to the end of assuring the efficacy of the Paris regulations.
Besting on the seventh article of your treaty with England of February 29, 1892, you are pleased to address to me at the same time the invitation of the Federal Government to the Imperial Government to adhere to the arbitral decisions of Paris, and to cause them to be respected by Russian subjects and vessels, by taking to such end the necessary legislative steps.
[Page 224]I will make it my prompt duty to transmit to my Government the communication you have addressed to me on this subject, and I reserve informing you of the reply of the Imperial Government when it shall reach me.
I think that I can, however, at once inform you that Russia, having to the same degree as the United States an interest and an imperative duty to equally assure in her waters the preservation of fur seal, the Imperial Government could not give its adhesion to the Paris regulations and to the legislative measures adopted in consequence thereof at Washington and at London unless the totality of those measures be applied likewise to all the waters of the Pacific situated to the north of the thirty-fifth degree of north latitude.
Be pleased, etc.,