of track of 178,549 miles of railroads was 235,482 miles, including 56,933 miles of side tracks and sidings. Of this total 207,618 miles consisted of steel and 27,864 miles of iron rails. The total liabilities of the railroads, including capital stock, bonded debt, unfunded debt amounting to $339,502,302, and $386,382,440 of current accounts, amounted to $11,432,690,278, and the total assets, comprising $9,953,767,710 of cost of railroad and equipment, $1,450,418,025 of real estate, stocks, bonds, and other investments, $231,915,121 of other assets, and $161,396,357 of current accounts, was $11,797,497,213, leaving $364,806,935 excess of assets over liabilities.

Telegraphs.-The Western Union Telegraph Company on June 30, 1897, had 190,614 miles of line, with 841,002 miles of wire, not including 8,000 miles of line and 60,000 miles of wire belonging to the New York Mutual Telegraph Company, 6,711 miles of line and 54,087 miles of wire of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, and 2,684 miles of line and 20,370 miles of wire of the American Rapid Telegraph Company, 8,000 miles of wire of the Northwestern Telegraph Company and other lines, making over 210,000 miles of line open to traffic, nearly all operated by the Western Union Company. The number of messages sent in 1897 was 58,151,684. The receipts were $22,638,859; expenses, $16,906,656; profits, $5,732,203. The capital stock is $100,000,000.

Arbitration Treaty with Great Britain.-On Jan. 11, 1897, a treaty providing for the settlement of future disputes arising between the United States and Great Britain by arbitration was signed at Washington by Secretary Olney and Sir Julian Pauncefote. The establishment of a system of international arbitration for the adjustment of disputes between the two governments was the subject of communications exchanged between Secretary Gresham and Sir Julian Pauncefote in the spring of 1895. When Mr. Olney, on Feb. 27, 1896, proposed a joint commission and ultimate binding arbitration for the settlement of the Venezuela boundary dispute Lord Salisbury took the view that he was not prepared in matters of high political import to admit unrestricted arbitration. On March 5, 1896, in a dispatch to the British ambassador at Washington, he proposed a general arbitration treaty, excluding issues upon which neither government was willing to accept arbitration, such as involve the national honor or integrity. In the wide region that lies within this boundary the United States desired to go further than Great Britain. A system of arbitration would be an entirely novel arrangement, and therefore the conditions under which it should be adopted were not likely to be ascertained antecedently, and the limits ultimately adopted must be determined by experiment. In the interests of the idea and of the pacific results that were expected from it, the British Minister of Foreign Affairs thought it wise to make a modest beginning. He inclosed in the dispatch a draft treaty, the adoption of which would give an opportunity for observing more closely the working of the machinery, leaving it entirely open to the contracting parties to extend its application and to bring under its action controversies to which for the present it can only be applied in a tentative manner and to a limited extent.

In the draft treaty Lord Salisbury proposed that the British and American governments should each appoint two or more judicial officers, and on the appearance of any difference between the two powers which in the judgment of either of them can not be settled by negotiation, each of them should designate one of the said officers as arbitrator, and the two should hear and determine any

matter referred to them in accordance with the treaty, having previously selected an umpire, by whom any question upon which they disagree. whether interlocutory or final, should be decided. No question which in the judgment of either power affects its honor or the integrity of its territory would be referred to arbitration except by special agreement. Any difference whatever might be referred by agreement between the two powers, with the stipulation that the decision should not be valid unless accepted by both powers.

Secretary Olney, in his answer of April 11, 1896, said that the President reciprocated in behalf of the Government and people of the United States the desire manifested in the proposals of Lord Salisbury that the two great English-speaking peoples of the world should remain in perpetual peace. In regard to the scope of arbitration, he proposed that all disputes should be considered arbitrable unless the Congress of the United States or the Parliament of Great Britain by act or resolution declare that the matter in controversy involves the national honor or integrity, and withdraw it from the operation of the treaty. In regard to the appellate arbitration machinery he proposed that a majority of the six American and English Supreme Court judges should decide, and if the court be equally divided upon the subject of the award, that three learned and impartial jurists upon whom the six judges have agreed beforehand, should be added, and the award of the court so constituted, whether rendered unanimously or by a majority vote, should be final. If the award of the original arbitrators be unanimous there should be no appeal. The British Secretary of State insisted on retaining the right to reject the award on territorial questions unless the vote of the court of appeal was five to one, and Mr. Olney finally gave way.

In the treaty which was negotiated and signed, but which the United States Senate refused to ratify in its original form, introducing amendments that were not pressed by the United States Government, the contracting governments agreed to submit to arbitration all questions in difference between them which they fail to adjust by diplo matic negotiation. Pecuniary claims or groups of claims arising out of the same transactions or involving the same issues of law and of fact, and which do not in the aggregate exceed £100,000 in amount nor involve the determination of territorial claims, were to be dealt with and decided by an arbitral tribunal composed of one arbitrator, who should be a jurist of repute, nominated by each of the high contracting parties, and a third member to act as umpire and president of the tribunal, who should be selected by the two arbitrators; or on their failing to agree on any person within two months, by an agreement between the United States Supreme Court and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Great Britain; or, failing such an agreement, by the King of Sweden and Norway. The award of the majority of the members of this tribunal would be final. Pecuniary claims or groups of claims exceeding £500,000 in amount and all matters in difference in respect of which either of the high contracting parties should have rights against the other under treaty or otherwise, provided they do not involve the determination of territorial claims, were to be dealt with and decided by an arbitral tribunal consisting of five jurists of repute, two to be nominated by each of the contracting governments, and the umpire to be selected by them or by the United States Supreme Court and Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, or by the King of Sweden and Norway. The award of a majority of the members of this tri

bunal would be final. If, however, before the close of the hearing upon a claim submitted to one of these arbitral tribunals either government should move and the tribunal should decide that a disputed question of principle of grave general importance was involved affecting national as distinguished from private rights, then the jurisdiction of this tribunal would cease, and the case would be transferred to a tribunal constituted as described below. Any controversy involving the determination of territorial claims was to be submitted to a tribunal composed of three judges of the Supreme Court or justices of the Circuit Court to be nominated by the President of the United States, and three judges of the British Supreme Court of Judicature, or members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council to be nominated by the British Crown. In cases where the question involved concerns a particular State or Territory of the United States, or a British colony or possession, a judicial officer of such State or Territory or of such colony or possession might be appointed to be one of the arbitrators. An award in which five of the six arbitrators concurred would be accepted by both governments as final; an award made by less than this majority would have no validity if either government should within three months protest that it was erroneous. In the event of an award made by less than the prescribed majority or of an equal division of the arbitral tribunal, it was agreed that there should be no recourse to hostile measures of any description until the mediation of one or more friendly powers had been invited by one or both of the high contracting parties. Territorial claims were defined as including all claims involving questions of servitude, rights of navigation and of access, fisheries, and all rights and interests necessary to the control and enjoyment of the territory claimed by either of the high contracting parties. It was left open to either government to ask that for all cases or for any particular case a substitute be agreed upon to name the umpire instead of the King of Sweden and Norway, on the ground that material changes of conditions had occurred, and the same would be done if the King of Sweden and Norway desired to be relieved of the functions. The treaty was concluded for five years.

Alaska Boundary Treaty.—A treaty was signed by the Secretary of State and the British Ambassador at Washington on Jan. 30, 1897, providing for the demarcation of as much of the boundary between Alaska and the Dominion of Canada as lies along the one hundred and forty-first meridian. The text of the treaty is as follows:

1. Each government shall appoint one commissioner, with whom may be associated such surveyors, astronomers, and other assistants as each government may elect.

The commissioners shall at as early a period as practicable proceed to trace and mark, under their joint directions and by joint operations in the field, so much of the one hundred and forty-first meridian of west longitude as is necessary to be defined for the purpose of determining the exact limits of the territory ceded to the United States by the treaty between the United States and Russia of March 30, 1867. Inasmuch as the summit of Mount St. Elias, although not ascertained to lie in fact upon the one hundred and forty-first meridian, is so nearly coincident therewith that it may conveniently be taken as a visible landmark whereby the initial part of said meridian shall be established, it is agreed that the commissioners, should they conclude that it is advisable so to do, may deflect the most southerly portion of said line so as to make the range with the summit of Mount St.

Elias, such deflection not to extend more than twenty geographical miles northwardly from the initial point.

2. The data relating to the determinations already made at this time by either of the two governments concerned of points on or near the one hundred and forty-first meridian for the purpose of fixing its position shall be submitted by each government to the commissioners, who shall decide which of the results of the determination shall be adopted by them. In case of disagreement between the commissioners as to the correct geographical co-ordinates of one and the same point determined by either of the two governments separately, a position midway between the two locations in question of the one hundred and forty-first meridian shall be adopted, provided the discrepancy between them shall not exceed 1,000 feet. În case of a greater discrepancy a new joint determination shall be made by the commissioners. 3. The location of the one hundred and fortyfirst meridian as determined hereunder shall be marked by intervisible objects, natural or artificial, at such distances apart as the commissioners shall agree upon, and by such additional marks as they shall deem necessary, and the line, when and where thus marked, in whole or in part, shall be deemed to permanently define for all international purposes the one hundred and forty-first meridian mentioned in the treaty of March 30, 1867, between the United States and Russia, and in the treaty of Feb. 28 (16), 1825, between Great Britain and Russia.

The location of the marks shall be described by such views, maps, and other means as the commissioner shall decide upon, and duplicate records of these descriptions shall be attested by the commissioners jointly, and be by them deposited with their respective governments together with their final report hereinafter mentioned.

4. Each government shall bear the expenses incident to the employment of its own appointees and of the operations conducted by them, but the cost of material used in permanently marking the meridian and of its transportation shall be borne jointly and equally by the two governments.

5. The commissioners shall diligently prosecute the work to its completion, and they shall submit to their respective governments from time to time, and at least once in every calendar year, a joint report of progress and a final comprehensive report upon the completion of the whole work.

The Sealing Question.-A convention for the determination of the damages to which British vessels seized in Bering Sea were entitled under the Paris award of August, 1893, was signed in January, 1897, with the assent of Canada. The Paris tribunal had decided that Bering Sea was a part of the high seas and pronounced the seizure of sealing vessels outside of territorial waters illegal, but declined to go into the question of damages, leaving that to the consideration of the two governments. The Senate in 1896 had rejected an agreement made with the British Government to pay over a lump sum of $425,000 in settlement of all damages. The convention was duly ratified, and Judge William L. Putnam, of the United States Circuit Court, on the part of the United States and on the part of Great Britain, George E. King, a justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, were appointed commissioners to assess the damages.

President McKinley appointed John W. Foster and Charles S. Hamlin special commissioners to endeavor to secure from the British Government a modus vivendi for the suspension of seal killing in Bering Sea for the season of 1897. Two years before Mr. Gresham had urged a speedy modification of the Paris regulations in order to avert the ex

termination of the herd, and proposed a commission to examine the question in which Japan and Russia should be invited to join, asking that sealing in Bering Sea should meanwhile be prohibited and the north Pacific restrictions extended along the thirtyfifth parallel to the Asiatic shore. After waiting four months the British Government answered that it was too late to stop the sealers and that an international commission would not lead to any useful result. When more seals were killed under the Paris regulations than before, the British authorities assumed that the seals were increasing instead of being rapidly exterminated, as the United States Government represented. In 1896 the depletion of the herd was evidenced in the pelagic catch, which was only half as great as in 1894. Dr. David Starr Jordan, the American expert who investigated the conditions of seal life, in his final report estimated that the herd on the Pribyloff Islands had decreased to about one fifth its size in 1874, and to less than half its size in 1890. His investigation in 1897 showed that the shrinkage on the rookeries in 1896 was 15 per cent., and that the number of killable males had fallen 33 per cent. owing to the starvation of pups from pelagic sealing. In his preliminary report he estimated the herd in 1896 as consisting of 143,071 breeding females, or a total number of 440,000 seals of all grades. Dr. Jordan described pelagic sealing as a suicidal industry which can be profitably continued only under conditions that must bring it to a speedy end. Since it began more than 600,000 fur seals have been taken in the north Pacific. This means the death of about 400,000 breeding females, the starvation of 300,000 pups, and the destruction of 400,000 pups still unborn, taking account only of the seals whose skins have been brought to the market, as no record is available of the animals lost after being speared or shot, though their number is known to be very great.

On May 10, 1897, Mr. Sherman, in a dispatch to Ambassador Hay, declared that the British Government had from the beginning and continuously failed to respect the real intent and spirit of the tribunal or the obligations imposed by it. The consequence was that the British sealers had practically accomplished the commercial extermination of the fur seal and brought to naught the patient labors and well-meant conclusions of the tribunal of arbitration. The British Government had opposed the demand for a conference before the term of five years fixed by the Paris tribunal, but the American Government urged that to defer the subject until after the termination of the season of 1898 would be fatal to the subject in view, as, should the destruction continue during two more seasons, there would be no occasion, owing to the disappearance of the seals, for a conference. The evasive policy that the British Government had followed was shown by the refusal to extend the regulations to the Asiatic waters; by the failure to put in operation the recommendations for a suspension of the killing of the seals for three, for two, or even for one year; by the neglect to put the regulations in force until long after the first sealing had been entered on; by the almost total evasion of the patrol duty; by the opposition to suitable measures for the enforcement of the prohibition against firearms; by the omission to enact legislation necessary to secure conviction of the guilty; and by the refusal to allow or provide for an inspection of skins in the interest of an honest observance of the regulations.

These accusations were treated by the British Government as too undiplomatic to deserve an answer except indirectly in a justificatory memorandum from the Colonial Office explaining that the British Government had withdrawn from the ar

rangement for the sealing up of arms because it did not serve to save British vessels from unnecessary interference, but was actually made a pretext for unwarrantable seizures; that it had refused to ask for legislation for the inspection of skins because it was not believed that such inspection would serve any useful purpose, as the sex of young seals could not be determined accurately from an examination of their skins. The colonial authorities in this communication asserted that the British Government had performed with the utmost vigor all the requirements of the award, but had been compelled to make continual and unavailing protests against the attempts of the United States to hamper and embarrass the operations of British subjects pursuing their lawful vocation.

Prof. D'Arcy Thompson, the English scientific expert who investigated the conditions on the rookeries in 1896, declared in his reports that the accounts of the herd's immense decrease and the prophecies of its approaching extinction were overdrawn and untenable. Nevertheless there was abundant need for care and for prudent measures of conservation in the interests of all. A birth rate estimated at 143,000 per annum was not great in comparison with the drain upon the stock. A loss of over 20,000 is experienced among the pups ere they emigrate, and the dangers and loss they endure in their migration are considerable, and when to the measured loss in infancy and the unmeasured loss in youth and age is added the toll taken on the islands, and then the toll taken at sea, it is not difficult to believe that the margin of safety is narrow if it be not already somewhat overstepped. A perpetuation of the present numbers might be hoped; no increase could be counted upon. It was therefore to be hoped that a recog nition of mutual interests and a regard for the common advantage would suggest measures of prudence that would keep the pursuit and slaughter of the animal within due and definite bounds.

Mr. Gresham, in March, 1894, suggested a convention between the four powers principally interested, namely, the United States, Great Britain, Russia, and Japan, to embrace a complete scheme of regulations applicable not only to the high seas, but also within the sovereignty, and he coupled it with a proposal that meantime the modus vivendi established during the arbitration should be renewed and extended over the whole area of the award. The British Government expressed a willingness to take part in a conference of the four powers and to renew the modus vivendi, but objected to its extension. The United States Government had approached the Russian and Japanese governments, which intimated that the condition of their adhesion to the regulations would be an extension of the limit laid down in the regulations, namely, 30° of north latitude, as far as the Japanese coast, so as to protect the Russian and Japanese rookeries. On July 28, 1897, Lord Salisbury answered Mr. Sherman's undiplomatic dispatch in a short note, in which he said that the British Government was willing to agree to a meeting of experts nominated by Great Britain and Canada and by the United States in October following, when the further investigations to be made on the islands during the current season would have been completed, the object of the meeting being to arrive, if possible, at correct conclusions respecting the numbers, conditions, and habits of the seals frequenting the Pribyloff Islands as compared with the several seasons previous and subsequent to the Paris award.

The Japanese and Russian governments accepted an invitation to send representatives to a sealing conference to be held in Washington in October, whereupon the British government, on Sept. 24,

acting, as in all matters connected with the seal fisheries, at the prompting of the Dominion Government, objected to the inclusion of Russia and Japanese representatives, and on Oct. 6 formally notified the Government of the United States that it would not enter an international conference in which Russia and Japan were represented, thinking that the conference should be confined to a comparison of the conclusions reached by the experts of Great Britain and the United States. Mr. Sherman expressed astonishment at Great Britain's determination not to take part in a conference including Russia and Japan, since Lord Salisbury had been informed by Mr. Hay in the beginning, both verbally and in writing, that the President hoped that those countries would be represented in the proposed conference. Mr. Sherman proposed that the American and British and Canadian experts should meet in accordance with the agreement as construed by Lord Salisbury. The international conference was held without the participation of Great Britain. Japan was represented by M. S. Fujita, Keishiro Matsui, and M. K. Mitsukuri; Russia, by Pierre Botkin, M. de Wollant, and M. Rutkovsky; the United States, by John W. Foster, Charles S. Hamlin, and Prof. David S. Jordan. These plenipotentiaries signed a convention for the suspension of pelagic sealing altogether for such time as, in the opinion of experts, the seals will require in order to insure their continued existence.

The meeting of experts took place in November. Prof. Thompson represented Great Britain, J. M. Macoun Canada, and Prof. Jordan the United States. The falling off in the seal catch of nearly half in the season of 1897, as compared with the previous year, confirmed the contention of the American experts. The total catch in the north Pacific declined from 73,000 to 38,700, of which 30,800 were taken by British, 4,100 by American, and 3,800 by Japanese vessels. In Bering Sea the catch was 29,500 in 1896, and in 1897 only 16,650, of which British vessels took 15,600 and American vessels 1,050. The United States Government offered to suspend the killing of seals on the islands for a year if the Canadian Government would agree to the suspension of pelagic fishing during 1898. This the Canadians declined to consider unless the owners of sealing vessels received compensation.

On Dec. 30 the Secretary of the Treasury issued regulations for the enforcement of an act of Congress, signed by the President on the day preceding, prohibiting the import of seal skins taken anywhere but on the Pribyloff Islands. It was ordered that no seal skins, raw, dressed, dyed, or otherwise manufactured, should be admitted, even as passengers' personal effects, unless accompanied by an invoice signed by the United States consul at the place of exportation certifying that the skins were not taken from seals killed at sea, and that all skins not certified should be seized and destroyed.

The Bimetallic Mission.-President McKinley appointed Senator Edward O. Wolcott, Adlai E. Stevenson, and Gen. Charles J. Paine special envoys to France, Great Britain, and Germany with the mission to discuss, in concert with the United States ambassadors in those countries, questions connected with the monetary problem and with plenipotentiary powers to come to some agreement for the establishment of bimetallism. They went first to Paris, where they secured the co-operation of the French Government, and in their later conferences and negotiations with the British Government they had the active support of the French embassy. They laid the following proposals before the British Government on July 15: The opening of the Indian mints to silver coinage and the repeal of the order making the sovereign legal tender in India;

the placing of one fifth of the bullion in the issue department of the Bank of England in silver; the raising of the legal-tender limit of silver coin from 40s. to £20, together with the issue of notes for 208. and 10s. based on silver and the withdrawal of the half sovereign; and an agreement to coin a certain amount of silver annually, or as an alternative to purchase silver at coinage value to the extent, as suggested by the French ambassador, of £10,000,000 a year. They suggested further that rupees and British dollars should be coined in England with full legal tender in the silver-standard dependencies of Great Britain and legal tender in the United Kingdom within the limit of £10, also that the selfgoverning British colonies be invited to follow on the same lines, and that Egypt should adopt free silver coinage. The reopening of the Indian mints was the crucial point in the negotiations. Baron de Courcel, the French ambassador, would have preferred to discuss the subject on the assumption that the English mints, as well as the Indian, should be opened to unlimited silver coinage. This was met by an uncompromising declaration of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that no such policy could possibly be entertained. The French Government insisted on the ratio of 15 to 1 as representing the normal and natural relation between silver and gold. The English Government was bound by a unanimous resolution of Parliament, passed on March 18, 1896, and accepted by it, to do all that was in its power to secure by international agreement a stable monetary par of exchange between silver and gold on the express understanding that Great Britain would not itself depart from the gold standard. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in speaking to this resolution, said that, while the Government would not be justified in proposing or accepting a departure from the gold standard of the United Kingdom, if it were "possible for other nations to be joined in a bimetallic league or in an agreement on this matter, which seemed good for themselves, I have little doubt but that the Indian Government would be prepared to agree with us in reopening the Indian mints to the free coinage of silver and that we might endeavor by other minor means to promote the increase of silver in coinage to aid in an international agreement on this great question." The First Lord of the Treasury said: "With this resolution in our hand we go to foreign nations and tell them that, although we are by tradition and by custom attached to a gold currency, and though they can hardly ask us to make this great change in our habits, a change far greater than any demanded of them, we will yet do for the cause of bimetallism as much as any country in the world. For we will make this great contribution to a bimetallic system -we will go back upon the deliberately arranged method of providing a currency for India; we will reopen the Indian mints, we will engage that they shall be kept open, and we shall therefore provide for a free coinage of silver within the Indian Empire for a population greater in number than the population of Germany, France, and America put together."

The proposal to hold one fifth of the reserve of the Bank of England in silver, which the statutes allow and which at the Paris Monetary Conference of 1881 the officers of the bank promised, at the suggestion of Italy and the United States, should international bimetallism be re-established, at first met with the approval of the governor and directors, but a storm of protests from financial circles made it impracticable for them or the Government to give effect to this suggestion. The proposal for reopening the Indian mints was submitted to the Indian Government. The answer, prepared by Sir James Westland, was dispatched on Sept. 16. The impor