hills which, whatever may be said at other points, there supplies an undeniable boundary in conformity with the Treaty.

Then when you come a little further south to the head of the Lynn Canal, looking at the map it will be found that the divide, as it is called there the summit of the pass-is 10 miles from the head of the water at Dyea; 10 miles takes you to the summit of Perrier Pass, as it is called, but looking at the American line it goes back 35 miles from the very head of the Lynn Canal, and carries it back to a point into a different watershed altogether, where it actually cuts in two Lake Bennett-a lake part of which, according to this line, would belong part to Canada and part to the United States. Now, in calling attention to this point, I am not, of course, for one moment admitting that any line would be properly measured from the head of the Lynn Canal. On the contrary, I have said, and shall say again, that the line must be measured from the general trend of the coast. But what I do call attention to is the fact that this line seems really to be drawn in almost ostentatious defiance of the terms of the Treaty. It ignores the Treaty altogether; it substitutes a line which can be erected only by a new and an independent Treaty altogether, and the effect of which is to give a very considerable amount of territory which may be of great value to the United States.

Now, how is that result worked out? The mountains are ignored, and then Article IV is called in, and, as I very respectfully submit to the Tribunal, called in for a purpose which it will not subserve. Article IV provides, as I pointed out, that where the summit of the mountains is more than 10 leagues from the coast you shall have the boundary formed by a line which shall never be distant more than 10 leagues from the coast. Now, take this line-I do not return to the point about the general trend of the coast; I am not returning to that; I am not going to repeat that point at the present moment, but what I call attention to is this, that these words have been read (if this line is looked at) as meaning that at no point is the line ever to be nearer to salt water than 35 miles all along. Take the head of every inlet, you will find that this line is 35 miles from the head of every inlet, and that at no point will you get greater proximity to any tidal water or salt water than 35 miles. But that is not what the Treaty says. What the Treaty says is that at no point shall the line exceed a distance of 10 marine leagues; it does not say that it is never to be less. And the result is certainly very remarkable, because the length of the line, if it is measured by this line-I am told the length of this line is $30 miles. Well, taking 35 miles as the 10 leagues-35 statute miles as equal to ten leaguesMr. AYLESWORTH. 343 miles. I

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Sir ROBERT FINLAY. Í take 35 for convenience. If you multiply the length of the line by 35 you get 22,000 square miles—a little more than 22,000 square miles. That is what you would get with a strip 630 miles long and 35 miles wide. But if this territory comprised within the claim of the United States is measured it will be found that it amounts to 32,000 square miles. Well, that at first sight might appear to be miraculous, but it is simply the result of this, that the principle is applied of keeping it 10 marine leagues from the head of every inlet.

Now I advert to this line for the purpose of asking the Tribunal not

to endeavour to go in search of any such conventional line-a line which could be created only by a new Convention as is here indicated, but to adhere to the terms of the Treaty in answering the questions which are propounded for the consideration of the Tribunal. I submit that, in the first place, in answering those questions the Tribunal will find that the Treaty depends upon the existence of mountains, and that there is nothing in Article IV which provides for any line at 35 miles from any line of coast if there be no mountains at all; and, in the second place, that the distance of the line is not to be 10 leagues and never less than 10 leagues from salt water, but that it is never to exceed 10 leagues from the general line of the coast. What I have been saying on this head may be illustrated by attempting to draw a line parallel to this conventional line shown as representing the claim of the United States. Of course, it must be parallel, or roughly parallel, throughout.

Well, if you start with a line parallel at the northern point just below the Malaspina glacier it will be found if you were to keep up your parallelism, or anything like your parallelism, the line to which this line is parallel will be one which, so far from representing the coast, whether you take inlets or general line, is far inland. It is difficult in words to describe what I am endeavouring to state to the Tribunal, but if the Tribunal would do me the honour of looking at this map, on which a parallel line has been drawn, it will explain in one moment what I mean. In fact, I am told that the line to which this must be parallel would take the coast over the top of Mount Fairweather. (Map exhibited).

Sir ROBERT FINLAY. That is a distance of 10 marine leagues?

The PRESIDENT. That is 10 marine leagues from the suggested American Boundary-yes.

Sir ROBERT FINLAY. And I may just say in passing that the claim to discard mountains and to substitute a width of 10 marine leagues throughout is a return to the proposal which, I have shown to the Tribunal, was made by Russia early in the negotiations and was definitely rejected by Great Britain The same result is now sought to be achieved in the manner to which I have been calling the attention of the Tribunal.

The other Articles in the Treaty of 1825 of which mention ought to be made are the fifth, sixth, and seventh-and the seventh in particular may be found to have a good deal of bearing upon the questions with which the Tribunal will have to deal.

The Vth Article provides:

"That no establishment shall be formed by either of the two Parties within the limits assigned by the two preceding Articles to the possessions of the other."

I do not think I need read the rest of the Article.
Article VI provides:-

"It is understood that the subjects of His Britannic Majesty, from whatever quarter they may arrive, whether from the Ocean or from the interior of the continent, shall for ever enjoy the right of navigating freely, and without any hindrance whatever, all the rivers and streams which in their course towards the Pacific Ocean, may cross the line of demarcation upon the line of coast described in Article III of the present Convention."

I submit to the Tribunal that that is an Article which will be found

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to be of very great importance. That is a provision that Great Britain shall have the right of navigation down any rivers which cross the strip which Russia was to have.

Now, it has been said-it is said repeatedly in the Case for the United States-that no provision is made for the use as to the navigation of inlets; the provision is only as to the navigation of rivers. Now, of course, where you have territorial waters, the Power to whom those waters belong has the right to prevent fishing, has the right to police, but it has not, according to the comity of nations, the right to prevent the use of those waters for the purpose of innocent passage by another Power, and where the right of passage down a river existed, of navigation up a river or down a river existed, the right to use the inlet so far as it formed territorial waters, or part of territorial waters, along the coast would be given by the general law of nations.

This Article has further, I submit, an important bearing on the contention of the United States that the intention of the Treaty was to cut off Great Britain from salt water. Why should there be such an intention? If Great Britain was to have the full right of navigating the rivers, why is she to be cut off from the right of navigating the inlets? The question in every case is where the line following the parallel to the general trend of the coast runs, and if it crosses an inlet the upper part of that inlet belongs to Great Britain. Then Article VII:—

"It is also understood that, for the space of ten years from the signature of the present Convention, the vessels of the two Powers, or those belonging to their respective subjects, shall mutually be at liberty to frequent, without any hindrance whatever, all the inland seas, the gulfs, havens, and creeks on the coast mentioned in Article III for the purposes of fishing and of trading with the natives."

That is a specific provision, having regard to the case with which Article III was dealing, as to the inland seas and the inlets. The right conferred by Article I was a right which applied to the Pacific Ocean generally. This provision in Article VII is a specific provision with regard to these inland seas and inlets.

Article VII is an important Article, and I shall not launch out into a disquisition upon it at the present time, because it would take me off the main line of the argument which I am endeavouring to follow in calling the attention of the Tribunal to the issues with which they will have to deal.

I think that I have now sufficiently indicated in a general way the view which Great Britain takes of the construction of the Treaty of 1825, and I desire now to present to the Tribunal a general view of the negotiations which preceded that Treaty. I do not think it necessary again to guard myself in any detail from its being supposed that I want to vary the Treaty. On the contrary, I am protesting against any attempt to vary the Treaty by reference to the negotiations, but there are various purposes for which, as every member of the Tribunal is aware, reference may properly be made to the pourparlers and the correspondence which have passed before a final agreement was arrived at. What I am going to do at this stage is to ask the Tribunal to take a connected view of these negotiations. When I come to deal with each specific question I shall of course have to call

the attention of the Tribunal to the passages in these negotiations which relate to that specific question; but after a good deal of consideration I came to the conclusion that it would not be a satisfactory way of dealing with a case of this kind if I were to approach the negotiations merely in a piecemeal manner-if I were to content myself with saying on Question 2, "There are such and such passages in the negotiations which may throw some light upon what it means." On the contrary, I think the Tribunal will be in a better position to appreciate the effect of these particular passages if I first endeavour to present them with a connected view of the negotiations, dividing them into periods, and calling attention to the salient features which each period presents, and to the despatches which passed during that period. The references to particular sentences which relate to particular points will afterwards be much more intelligible, and, I think, much more fruitful.

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Now, the negotiations will be found to fall under several heads; but before dealing with those heads, there are certain facts as to the situation which, of course, were in the minds of the negotiators, and which ought to be recalled to the memory of the Tribunal. They are very brief indeed. There had been explorations by Russia upon these coasts starting in the eighteenth century. It is not very clear how far down these explorations by the Russians had proceeded.

In the year 1793-94 there took place the great explorations of Captain Vancouver, which throw, of course, a very great deal of light upon this case, and whose narrative and maps supply a great part of the materials upon which the negotiators of the Treaty of 1825 must have worked.

At the time of Vancouver's voyages the easternmost post of the Russians was Port Etches, in Prince William's Sound That is a very long way up-so far up to the north that it is beyond the reach of the map.

The PRESIDENT. It is north of the Aleutian Islands, I think.

Sir ROBERT FINLAY. It is very near the Aleutian Islands. It is not north of them, my Lord, but it is very near them.

The PRESIDENT. I think it is north.

Sir ROBERT FINLAY. If your Lordship will look at what is called the Alaska Peninsula, your Lordship will see from the end of that runs the Aleutian Islands, which apparently had formed part of it. The PRESIDENT. It is in the bight just below.

Sir ROBERT FINLAY. Just below. Yes, the first bight is Cook's Inlet; then comes Prince William's Sound, and it is in Prince William's Sound that Etches is situated. That was the most easterly settlement of the Russians at the time of Vancouver's voyages. In 1799 there is the Ukase of the Emperor Paul, of which I have already made mention, and which is a fact which really lies at the very root of the negotiations; and reference ought certainly to be made to that Ukase. Your Lordship will find it at page 5 of the Appendix to the British Case.

The PRESIDENT. Yes.

Sir ROBERT FINLAY. That is the Ukase granted in favour of the Russian-American Company for a period of 20 years, and the first Article is this. I cannot help feeling that I am going over ground

which must be very familiar indeed to one member of the Tribunal, who has had previous experience in similar matters :—

"By the right of discovery in past times by Russian navigators of the northeastern part of America, beginning from the 55th degree of north latitude and of the chain of islands extending from Kamschatka to the north to America and southward to Japan, and by right of possession of the same by Russia, we most graciously permit the Company to have the use of all hunting grounds and establishments now existing on the north-eastern (sic) coast of America."

Well, I suppose they call it the north-eastern, because they were approaching from the other side. Even making allowance for that, it is not a very accurate use of the expression, because, although it may be north-eastern from their point of view, it is not the north-eastern coast of America

Mr. AYLESWORTH. They were going north-east.

Sir ROBERT FINLAY. Yes, exactly-" from the above-mentioned 55th degree to Behring Strait, and on the same also on the Aleutian, Kurile, and other islands situated in the north-eastern ocean.

"2. To make new discoveries not only north of the 55th degree of north latitude but farther to the south, and to occupy the new lands discovered, as Russian possessions, according to prescribed rules, if they have not been previously occupied by any other nation, or been dependent on another nation."

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Now the Tribunal will observe there the limit of 55 degrees north latitude, which is assigned for that grant, and it will be found afterwards what an important part that played in the nature of the claim by Russia, with which the negotiators on behalf of England had to deal before the Treaty of 1825.

About the same time as that Ukase-about the end of the eighteenth century-the post of Sitka was established. That post is situated on the Island of Baranoff. On the west side of that island is Sitka, or New Archangel. It is very often referred to under the name of New Archangel in the negotiations-Novo Archangelsk, and is situated on Norfolk or Sitka Sound, according to the maps; and Sitka was the post of the Russians which was furthest to the south at the time of the negotiations which we are now approaching; Russia had no post further to the south than Sitka.

It was the extreme point which Russia had reached in the way of the establishment of posts. And on the mainland—and I call particular attention to this point-on the mainland Russia at this time had no settlement whatever at any point which is material for consideration. There were, of course, the settlements on the mainland further to the north. I have mentioned Etches, and there were settlements on Cook's inlet which the Russians, the Tribunal will find, called Kenai Inlet; but on the mainland there were no Russian settlements whatever anywhere in the neighbourhood of the territory which is now in dispute. There was this island of Sitka, and that becomes a very important factor when we are dealing with the reasons which the Russians gave for desiring to acquire a strip of territory upon the mainland. Of posts on the mainland Russia had none.

In 1821 comes the Russian Ukase of that year, which advances the somewhat extravagant claim with which the negotiators had to deal in a portion of the Treaty of 1825. It will be found on page 7 of the British Case. The Ukase itself is very short, at the top of the page. It is dated the 4th September, 1821, and is in these terms:—

"Nous étant convaincus par les Rapports qui nous ont été présentés que le commerce de nos sujets avec les Iles Aléoutes et la partie de la côte nord