two flags are flying within five or six feet of each other. One is the British and the other is the American flag. Between them is supposed to run an imaginary line bounding the territories of the two countries. The line is as unstable as it is imaginary, for it was determined upon by the two governments to provide a modus vivendi while the controversy as to the true line was conducted in London.

It was time, when the modus was adopted, that something should be done. The revenue agents of the Dominion of Canada had taken into their own hands the right of determining the extent of their own jurisdiction. They had moved from their unquestioned territory into American lands, and, as they moved, they had undertaken to exercise the disagreeable functions of their office. This had excited the wrath of the Americans, not only of those who dwell in Alaska, but of those who inhabit the state of Washington, and especially of that part of it which borders upon Puget sound.

Angry passions had been aroused, and conflict was threatened, and when the Canadian revenue officers had actually taken up their quarters at Skagway the United States army felt called upon to intervene, the result being that the Canadians moved back to the crest of White Pass, where they remain, companions of the United States revenue officers, under Mr. Hay's modus vivendi.

This boundary question is exciting on this coast; both the modus vivendi agreement and the commission which is about to meet in London are unpopular. One cannot speak of the Canadian claim to a United States

inhabitant of Alaska, or to a Washingtonian, without receiving the answer: "If John Bull gets the territory that Canada claims he'll have to fight for it."

This angry frame of mind had not been imparted to the Washington authorities when they made their agreement, nor was it patent to Congress when the commission was authorized. This is a "rough and ready" part of the country and has no faith in diplomacy. One hears on every side strong views as to the government's policy in agreeing to debate the question of relative rights. Mr. Olney is constantly quoted with approval as having said that there was nothing in this question to arbitrate.

I am also told by a leading man of Seattle that the President promised him that he would never agree to arbitrate the question. He announced that if he had been in Polk's place he would have actually fought before he gave up 54 deg. 40 min., and here was a similar proposition. And yet here is the commission composed of men supposed to be committed in advance to the Northwest's view.

Strangely enough, the American integrity of one member of this commission is doubted by the fervid people of the Pacific coast, and that member is Mr. Lodge. It is a curious doubt, for any one who has followed Mr. Lodge's speeches on this subject must know that he is absolutely committed to the United States' contention. Indeed, to the unprejudiced mind the commissioners are not judges at all, but counsel.

It is plain, however, that notwithstanding Mr. Roosevelt's popularity in general in the Northwest, he is suspected of wavering on the boundary question, and

that the expression of a suspicion of Mr. Lodge's firmness is but another way of expressing suspicion of the President. It is the opinion, or the feeling, here, that the English commissioners will not dare to agree with the American against the interests and the desires of the Dominion, and that unless one of the Americans shall yield, arbitration must be the consequence.

"Are we not committed to arbitrate everything? Are we not the chief sponsor of The Hague tribunal?" asked a former officer and still a resident of Alaska. The question was not wholly intelligent, but it fully spoke the fears of the people here. The thoughtful men who dread the consequences, reasoning from this basis, say that when the British commissioners find that they cannot agree with the commissioners from this country, they will suggest an arbitration to a foreign power or to The Hague tribunal, and that our own. precedents favoring arbitration will be used in urging us to an agreement.

The late Venezuela incident will be especially potent. Strangely enough, the feeling is that an arbitration would result disastrously to this country. This feeling, however, is not due to any doubt as to the justice of our contention, but to the belief that a foreign power or that The Hague tribunal would be governed by a desire to grant to the Dominion a port on the coast north of 54 deg. 40 min., especially now that the British possessions in the Yukon territory have turned out to be valuable.

It is safe to say that if such a result should follow the reference to the commission of this boundary

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dispute, it would be disastrous to the administration on the Pacific coast. The people grumble at the confession, implied by the appointment of the commission, that there is any subject open to discussion. Indeed a study of the question and an examination of maps and charts-British as well as Russian and Americanmust convince one that the people here are right.

The whole subject has been thoroughly and ably discussed by Mr. Thomas Willing Balch of the Philadelphia bar. People in this region, lawyers as well as laymen, think that Mr. Balch knows more about the subject than does any other man in the country, and express great surprise that he has not been employed as counsel for the United States. Perhaps he is aiding the government, but in Alaska it seems as though Mr. Foster and his son-in-law were the sole defenders of our claims before the tribunal.

What is interesting is that the whole course of the government is watched with jealousy. Every step that it takes is questioned, and this because the people of the Capitol, the President and the Senate, have agreed to debate as to the relative rights of Great Britain and the United States to territory which people here believe to be our possession, and which was universally conceded to be so until 1898, five years ago.

The firmness of this conviction is shown by the remark of a Seattle man who is interested in Alaska in a commercial way. "Why," he said, "William McKinley would never have agreed to arbitrate. William McKinley was an amiable man and did not love to scrap, either in action or by word of mouth,

but he stood by his rights. If a Britisher, or anybody else, claimed his coat and demanded it of him, Mr. McKinley would have said: 'No, my dear sir, I paid for this coat and it is mine.' He would have tried to convince the wrongful claimant of his error, but he would have declined to arbitrate his rights to his own property, and, if the other had insisted, he would have told him that he could not have the coat unless he took it."

This is the way in which the people of the disputed territory and those in its vicinity feel about the boundary question. They know that the territory belongs to the United States. They go back to 1825, when Russia and England negotiated the boundary treaty, and when the English government struggled to acquire a seaport for the western part of its dominion above 54 deg. 40 min. In that negotiation Count Nesselrode, speaking for Russia, insisted that ever since 1799 Great Britain had been deliberately excluded from the sea north of 54 deg. 40 min., and, in describing the contention of 1825, said: "Thus we wish to retain, and the English companies wish to acquire."

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There seems no ground for disputing our title but the one that the Yukon territory is valuable. Canada wants a port north of Port Simpson, which is of 54 deg. 40 min. If the Canadians' claim were granted by way of compromise, we would be deprived of a port on the interior Alaskan waters. Skagway would then become British, and all that would pass between the United States and Alaska would have to pass