caused her to cast covetous glances toward American territory, and to seek to establish claims, which, in view of the well-established rights of our government, are entirely baseless.

The contempt in which Canadian officials hold our claims of sovereignty over that strip of territory running from fifty-four degrees forty minutes north to Mount St. Elias was first manifested to the entire country, when certain Canadian constables took a prisoner named Peter Martin, who was convicted in the Cassiar district of British Columbia for some offence, from the place where he was convicted to and across United States territory lying along the Stickine river, a stream which flows into the estuaries southeast of Sitka. While on American soil, Martin assaulted one of the constables, and then made an unsuccessful attempt to escape. At that time, Hon. Hamilton Fish was Secretary of State. Mr. Fish protested vigorously against an infringement of territorial sovereignty of the United States in the territory of Alaska, and the Dominion government recognized the justness of his complaint by setting the prisoner free.

The above comments have been suggested by Mr. Thomas Willing Balch's monograph, "The Alasko-Canadian Frontier," which has just been issued by the press of Allen, Lane and Scott, of Philadelphia. Mr. Balch, who is a prominent member of the Philadelphia bar, and a gentleman of scholarly attainments, read this monograph at the annual meeting of the Franklin Institute, January 15th, 1902; and it is now reprinted in beautiful form from the Journal of that Institute for March, 1902.

Although Mr. Balch's monograph is brief, it shows great research, as well as a careful review of a question which has caused fears to be expressed that the imperial government might eventually secure territory which came to us through our purchase from Russia.

Mr. Balch refers to the agreement between the United States and Great Britain, at the end of May, 1898, whereby an Anglo-American Joint High Commission was to be appointed, for the purpose of considering and arranging upon a basis more favorable to both sides, "such problems as the regulations of the North Atlantic fisheries, commercial reciprocity, and the Bering Sea fishery question." Soon after the British government coolly announced that "a difference of views" existed respecting the provisions of a treaty made between Great Britain and Russia in 1825. These "difference of views" concerned the meaning of the Alaskan frontier. On August 23, 1898, the British government blandly claimed that the eastern boundary of Alaska should run from the extremity of Prince of Wales Island at fifty-four degrees forty minutes, “along the estuary marked on recent maps as Pearse Canal, up to the top of Portland Canal, and from there straight to the coast, and then along the mountains on the mainland nearest to the shore and across all the sinuosities of the sea that advance into the continent up to Mount Saint Elias."

The meaning of the "difference of views" is plain. By pushing the Alasko-Canadian frontier, which has stood undisturbed for many years, toward the coast, the British government would gain access to the ocean

through the estuaries which do not extend inland farther than American soil.

Mr. Balch's purpose is to show that this recent contention of the imperial government is contrary to the provisions of the treaty of 1825, as well as to the conduct of the claimants for more than three-quarters of a century. The treaty of 1825 specified the line of demarcation between British soil and the Alaskan possessions, possessions which are now claimed by the United States.

Although every word in the treaty is plain, there appears to have been some misunderstanding on the part of the British authorities for some years after the signatory powers had come to an agreement.

Count Nesselrode, who in behalf of Russia had assisted in the negotiations with Great Britain during the years 1822, 1823, 1824, and 1825, aptly contrasted the efforts of Russia and Great Britain when the two countries were endeavoring to agree upon a frontier between their American possessions. He said: "Thus we wish to retain, and the English Companies wish to acquire."

Mr. George Canning, the English foreign secretary at the time of the negotiations in which Count Nesselrode was concerned, put forth no serious claim to any part of the Alaskan coast. Russia's assertion that she had exclusive jurisdiction over and the exclusive right of navigation on Bering Sea is what the British authorities wished to combat.

Mr. Balch's monograph is illustrated with eight specimens of the cartographers' work, illustrations which show that this latest claim of the British government

is simply preposterous. One of the maps included in the monograph was drawn by order of the Czar of Russia in 1827, and the work was performed by a celebrated Russian navigator, Admiral Krusenstern. The other chart was first published by the British. admiralty on June 21st, 1877. It has been corrected to April 1898. Both of these maps show that the British authorities do not possess the shadow of a claim against the territory which the United States now holds.

Mr. Balch says that our government should never consent to refer the present dispute to arbitration, simply because we have nothing to arbitrate. Everybody who has had the good fortune to read Mr. Balch's luminous treatise, will wonder at the presumptuous conduct of the British authorities over the frontier question.

THE ALASKAN BOUNDARY."

Stories have drifted down to us from time to time of late alleging the destruction by Canadian officials of the monuments set up to mark the boundary between Canadian territory and what was Russian territory and is now territory of the United States.

It is hard to believe that anybody with brains enough to fill any office would be foolish enough to do anything of this kind, to say nothing of the moral turpitude involved.

If anybody has been thus stupid it can have no effect on the final decision of the dispute. It is a

"Editorial from The Chronicle, Chicago, Illinois, April 21, 1902.

simple and undeniable proposition that we now own what Russia once owned in that region. Just that and no more nor less. What Russia owned is to be determined from the Anglo-Russian treaty of 1825.

T. W. Balch, than whom there is no better advised authority, published not long ago an examination of the whole question with the title, "The Alasko-Canadian Frontier," thoroughly dispassionate and based on that treaty and the discussions between Russia and Great Britain that grew out of it. It is made clear that Russia claimed and the treaty established ownership and control of all navigable waters of all the islands and of a strip of the mainland reaching inland not less than thirty miles from the shore line and following-or paralleling-its sinuosities. That strip reached southward to a point not in dispute.

It is not to be forgotten that when that treaty was made the United States claimed the territory northward to that point as was indicated in the old democratic partisan cry in the "40's of 'Fifty-four forty or fight!""

We did not stand up for our claim, but for all that it is just as certain as that the treaty was made that Russia believed we would stand up to it and that one of her leading intentions in making the treaty just what it is was to shut off Great Britain entirely from having any Pacific port on the west coast of America.

Since the gold discoveries in Alaska Canada has set up a claim to a port within the territory from which the treaty was made expressly to exclude British ownership and control. Mr. Balch's statement, argu