sickening surrender of the rights of American citizens, who have been driven from American gold fields by the Canadian constabulary. I repeat the criticism which brought the gentleman from Iowa to his feet, and again declare that never in the history of diplomacy has there occurred a surrender of a great nation's rights and submission to insolence and insult so pitiful, so cowardly, so contemptible, so pusillanimous. (Loud applause).

I yield back the remainder of my time.

CANADA'S CLAIMS WITHOUT JUSTIFICATION.18 That the attitude of Canada in the dispute over the Alaskan boundary is utterly unjustifiable, that it is an afterthought without discoverable precedent or source in the history of the region, that it is disproved by the utterances of the greatest statesmen of both the Dominion and its mother-country, and that, finally, neither Russia nor Great Britain nor Canada ever, until within the most recent years, recognized the possibility of such a stand as that now taken by the third-named-this is the ably demonstrated thesis of Thomas Willing Balch's volume on "The Alaska Frontier."

This book, the work of a Philadelphian whose years of laborious investigation concerning the question have won him a reputation virtually international, constitutes, all things considered, the most effective, accu

18 Review in The Press, Philadelphia, February 22, 1903, written by the Managing Editor, Harvey Maitland Watts, Esq.

mulative and crushing blow thus far dealt the Canadian claim. In the first place, it shows that all the Russian maps, all the British maps and-until a year or two ago, after the "claim" had been manufacturedall the Canadian maps openly supported the United States. In the second place, written before the recent commission had been appointed, it protests against our submitting so simple a case to the formality of arbitration.

And, in the third place, not only is it clearly written and logically argued, not only does it command the attention by the evident fact that it is based upon a careful, not to say profound, research of original documents both here, in England and in Russia, but it becomes, to all appearances, irrefutable because the bulk of the evidence offered against Canada is out of the mouths of eminent Canadian and Englishmen, speaking in an official capacity.

A PLAIN TALE OF EXPLORATION.

Mr. Balch begins his work by a plain, unvarnished narrative of the growth of the dispute.

"The advance of the United States and of England," he says, "across the continent of North America toward the Pacific Ocean, of Spain along the Pacific coast toward the north, and of Russia across Siberia to the east, brought about in the first quarter of the nineteenth century a clashing of interest between these Powers over the ownership of the northwest coast of America and its hinterland.

"The Americans, Lewis and Clark, crossed the continent and discovered the Columbia River, and thus

by right of discovery, began the claims of the United States upon the northwest coast. Whatever rights France had in the far northwest reverted to the United States by the Louisiana purchase in 1803. The claims of Spain to the territory lying to the north of California were merged by treaty in 1819 in those of the United States. The Hudson's Bay Company in the quest for furs sent its trappers and advanced its trading posts further and further west; and, as the authorized agent of the British crown, it carried the sovereignty of the English King across the continent nearer and nearer to the Pacific. Cook, Vancouver and other English seamen, too, sailed along the North American shore washed by the Pacific Ocean. -The Russian Cossacks, first under an ataman named Yermak, gradually bore, in their search for the valu-able sable skins, the sway of the 'Great White Tsar' across Siberia to the waters of the Pacific, thus proving that Bishop Berkeley was only half right when he wrote Westward the course of empire holds its way.'

"Then with the exploring expedition commanded by the Cossack, Deshneff, who probably sailed through Bering Strait in 1648, and with that led in 1741 by Bering, the Dane, across the Pacific to the great land, the bolshaiä zemlia, to the east, the Russians began to explore and then to settle on the American continent.

"The United States, England and Russia continued to affirm their sovereignty to greater and greater areas of land in the northwest part of the American continent. And Russia even went so far as to

assert her right to the absolute dominion over Bering Sea and a large extent of the northern part of the Pacific Ocean."

ENGLAND AND RUSSIA.

This brought England and Russia to a definite difference which was only settled after a year's arduous negotiations, when the treaty of 1825 was signed at St. Petersburg whereby the Muscovite Government withdrew its claim to sovereignty over a portion of the high seas, and a frontier was drawn from the Arctic Ocean, along the meridian of 141 degrees West longitude to Mount Saint Elias, and then was to follow the crest of the mountains running parallel to the coast, to the head of the Portland Channel, and down that sinuosity to the ocean in fifty-four degrees forty minutes north latitude. But if at any point the crest of the mountains proved to be at a greater distance than ten marine leagues from the shore, then the frontier should run parallel to the sinuosities of the coast at a distance of ten marine leagues inland, but never further than that from the shore.

NEVER CONTESTED RUSSIAN POSITION.

For over fifty years Mr. Balch points out England never contested the interpretation proclaimed by both Russia and America that, after the sale of Alaska, the United States owned a strip of territory from the Portland Channel to Mount St. Elias, cutting off Great Britain from access to the sea "above the point of 44 degrees, 40 minutes." It was not until 1898 that England claimed that the right interpre

tation of the treaty gave Canada the upper portion of virtually all fiords between the canal and St. Elias.

That this interpretation never occurred to the original English negotiators Mr. Balch proves by a careful review of their utterances and attitude during the negotiations of 1822-25. "It is not," said George Canning, "on our part essentially a negotiation about limits. It is a demand of the repeal of an offensive and unjustifiable arrogation of exclusive jurisdiction over an ocean of unmeasured extent." The withdrawal of Russia's claim to Pacific dominion secured England had accomplished her purpose.

The text of the resulting treaty was "the crucial and final statement of how the line of demarcation between Alaska and the Dominion of Canada should be found." A review of the pourparlers, says Mr. Balch, shows that the negotiators intended to include within the Russian territory a lisière on the mainland from the Portland Channel up to Mount Saint Elias, and extending between those points far enough inland to exclude the English possessions absolutely from access to the coast line above fiftyfour degrees forty minutes. Within recent years some Canadians have tried to read into that agreement a meaning radically different from the interpretation which all the world held.

Not only are there within the text of the treaty itself expressions and provisions that place beyond question the fact that Britain should not have an access to tide water on the northwest coast above fiftyfour forty; but also the whole course of history from