Читать книгу Alaska, the Great Country - Ella Higginson - Страница 11

Copyright by E. A. Hegg, Juneau Courtesy of Webster & Stevens, Seattle Road through Cut-off Canyon

In 1903 a tribunal composed of three American members and three representing Great Britain, two of whom were Canadians, met in Great Britain, to settle certain questions relating to the lisière.

The seven large volumes covering the arguments and decisions of this tribunal, as published by the United States government, make intensely interesting and valuable reading to one who cares for Alaska.

The majority of the tribunal, that is to say, Lord Alverstone and the three members from the United States, decided that the Canadians have no rights to the waters of any of the inlets, and that it was the meaning of the Convention of 1825 that the lisière should for all time separate the British possessions from the bays, ports, inlets, and waters of the ocean north of British Columbia; and that, furthermore, the width of the lisière was not to be measured from the line of the general direction of the mainland coast, leaping the bays and inlets, but from a line running around the heads of such indentations.

The tribunal, however, awarded Pearse and Wales islands, which belonged to us, to Canada; it also narrowed the lisière in several important points, notably on the Stikine and Taku rivers.

The fifth question, however, was the vital one; and it was answered in our favor, the two Canadian members dissenting. The boundary lines have now been changed on both United States and Canadian maps, in conformity with the decisions of the tribunal.

Blaine, Bancroft, and Davidson have made the clearest statements of the boundary troubles.