Fisheries and Here we touch the question of a state's jurisdiction over the high seas and its coast sea. The treatment of the Northern fisheries was a problem in the peace of 1783; it is a problem to-day. In 1783 the high sea fishery was admitted to be open to the new state, while an extensive grant of coast fishing privileges off Newfoundland, Labrador, Nova Scotia and the Magdalen Islands was added. As a grant, this privilege was termi nated by the War of 1812, according to British contention. By consenting in 1818 to the re vival of but a portion of the coast fishery for merly enjoyed, the United States accepted this theory. The grant of 1818 was in terms per petual. Between this treaty and the next, in 1854, much had happened in fishery matters to disturb the peace of the two countries; adverse provincial legislation; the broadening of forbid den waters by the headland theory; exclusion from the large bays under penalty of cap ture; and on the other side, smuggling and ag gression by our own smacks. In 1854 came in the principle of reciprocity, which meant free fishing to us, free entry of fish to the Canadians, which they strongly desired. .In 1871, this reciprocity, which had terminated, was revived for a term of years, coupled with an arbitration plan for striking a balance of values. Under this the Halifax Commission, 1877, decided $5,500,000 to be due Great Britain. Now we are back on the 1818 basis again, defined as to Newfoundland, by the arbitration of 1910, but we still need the Gulf fishing and the Canadians need our mar ket. Since these are, the one of fluctuating, the other of great and certain value, it seems false reciprocity try any longer to balance them. In the Pribilof seal herd, acquired by the Alaska purchase, the United States had a valuable as set. These seals spend part of their year at sea, but returning to their isles to breed are exposed to pelagic attack. The United States has tried to prevent this wasteful method of gathering skins by claiming exclusive jurisdic tion over the eastern Bering Sea, and by claim ing ownership in the seals while at sea. When these claims wee tested by arbitration at Paris in 1893, they both broke down (see BERING SEA CONTROVERSY), but it had been agreed whatever their respective rights might prove to be, that sealing regulations should be enforced by the two powers for the preservation of the seal herd. Such were framed, but have proved inef fective. The best way of treating the question from the first would have been by international union, to include Russia and Japan. Mr. Bay ard tried this, but Canada's influence prevented and later Mr. Blaine tried the other, mistaken; tack. In 1897 our own country, Japan and Russia agreed to prohibit pelagic sealing, so long as experts deemed essential, and finally in 1911 Great Britain acceded, so that until 1926 all pelagic sealing in the north Pacific is prohibited, the catch on the Pribilofs being equitably shared.
As to Interoceanic diplomacy of the United States has been long and often concerned with the attempt to secure a favor able canal concession across some portion of Central America, and to define such canal's status. It has been seriously handicapped, how ever, by two things: (1) In constant uncer tainty as to what route was physically best, it has had to negotiate, so to speak, in the dark, with several states, any one of which might be the sovereign of the route decided upon. (2) Our policy has alternated between the neutral ization of. a canal by the commercial powers, as in the case of Suez, 1888, and single-handed con trol and protection by the United States, the latter predominating. The victory of the latter policy was made clear by the defeat of the first Hay-Pauncefote Treaty in the Senate. The con vincing argument for it was the desire for an exclusive war right in the canal, for naval mobilization. This was rendered possible by the abrogation in 1901 of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (q.v.) of 1850 with Great Britain. The revolu tion in Panama and its recognition as an inde pendent state in 1903, followed by a canal treaty with the new state, by which the United States guarantees Panama's continued independent ex istence, are the final steps in this long process of negotiation and definition. Under these two treaties with Great Britain in 1901 (the second Hay-Pauncefote) and the treaty of 1903 with Panama, the great canal has been dug, the proc ess requiring 10 years from possession in 1904 to opening in 1914. Its status is that of terri
torial ownership, by perpetual grant from Pan ama, the rights of the French Company being extinguished by the payment of $40,000,000 and with a douceur to Panama of $10,000,000 and $250,000 a year. The territory is a zone 10 miles wide, with water rights beyond this limit; Colonel Goethals was the engineering and ad ministrative head; Colonel Gorgas was in charge of sanitation; it was theoretically neu tralized but by the United States alone, which really means protected; to make this protection effective the terminals have been fortified; it is governed by an appointee of the President; it is opened on terms of equality to the ships of all nations. See PANAMA CANAL.
The United States and the Declaration of Why has the United States, always standing tip for neutral rights, never joined in the neutral bill of rights of 1856, called the Declaration of Paris (q.v.)? It was the aboli tion of privateering which was Mr. Marcy's stumbling block in 1856, because he deemed the retention of this right necessary to supplement our small navy. But, he said, if you will yield the right to capture enemy's innocent private property at sea as well, our accession will be gladly made. Spain and Mexico likewise re fused. Yet when Spain and the United States were at war in 1898, neither side employed pri vateers. It can be shown that the other rules of the Declaration are in the interest of the United States and accepted by it; also that pri vateering is not of much practical value to-day, particularly to a naval power. The conclusion should be drawn that in this respect our diplo macy has been a mistake, that we should gain much and lose little by accepting the Declara tion of Paris in its entirety.
The Diplomacy of the Civil This was mainly concerned with three classes of questions: (1) those relating to the recognition of Southern belligerency; (2) those relating to the blockade; (3) those connected with the equipment and reception of Confederate ships of war in foreign, mostly British, waters. In the first particular Mr. Seward pursued a wrong-headed policy, claiming the rights of a belligerent to blockade and search, for example, which implied a legal war, but denying never theless the existence of a war and of a body of neutral powers. This mistake complicated much of the early diplomacy of the war, and made the attitude of the North most difficult. When states find their relations closely affected by a civil war, their commerce hampered by the rules of blockade, contraband and search, a new flag seeking entrance to their ports, a new gov ernment de facto applying belligerent rights on the sea, they are warranted by international law and by their own commercial interests, in rec ognizing the new belligerent and declafing their own neutrality. In our Civil War, Spain, The Netherlands, Great Britain and France did this, and Mr. Seward complained of it. The blockade of Southern ports was a gigantic task, slowly made effective, with some irregularities, but in the main conducted on legal lines. Great Britain, the power whose trade was most af fected by it, respected it and was even consid erate in declining to press remonstrance in view of lapses in the blockade of certain ports, and in cases where the declaration of blockade for a long period was not substantiated in fact. It was in the partiality with which England's neu trality laws were administered at 'her colonial ports, and particularly in the violation of those laws in home waters, that she erred. Two Con federate cruisers were built, equipped, armed and in some degree manned by British agen cies. They helped to sweep Northern com merce from the seas. Mr. Adams and the watchful consuls resident in England left no stone unturned to stop them. Never was there a more difficult position than that of C. F. Adams, nor one more gallantly filled. Sympathy for the South pervaded the ruling class. The gradual change of sentiment as the war pro gressed, the consciousness of a dangerous prec edent set, the diplomatic pressure applied after the war by a reunited United States, these led Great Britain on to the settlement of the so called Alabama claims at Washington in 1871.
This was a diplomatic triumph, because it laid down a strict standard of neutral behavior, by which England consented tnat a court of arbi tration should judge her conduct, though deny ing that it had been theretofore applicable. See