With the discovery of gold in the far North, Alaska began a period of development which is rapidly making that territory an important economic factor in American life.Today the time when this vast northern coast was valuable only as the breeding ground for the fur seal seems long past.Nevertheless the fur seal continued to be sought, and for years the international difficulty of protecting the fisheries remained.Finally, in 1911, the United States entered into a joint agreement with Great Britain, Japan, and Russia, which is actually serving as a sort of international game law.The problems of Alaska that remain are therefore those of internal development.
Diplomacy, however, is not concerned solely with sensational episodes.American ministers and the State Department are engaged for the most part in the humdrum adjustment of minor differences which never find their way into the newspapers.Probably more such cases arise with Great Britain, in behalf of Canada, than with any other section of the globe.On the American continent rivers flow from one country into the other; railroads carry goods across the border and back again; citizens labor now in one country, now in the other; corporations do business in both.All these ties not only bind but chafe and give rise to constant negotiation.More and more Great Britain has left the handling of such matters to the Canadian authorities, and, while there can be no interchange of ministers, there is an enormous transaction of business between Ottawa and Washington.
While there has of late years been little talk of annexation, there have been many in both countries who have desired to reduce the significance of the boundary to a minimum.This feeling led in 1911 to the formulation of a reciprocity agreement, which Canada, however, was unwilling to accept.Yet, if tariff restrictions were not removed, other international barriers were as far as possible done away with.In 1898 a commission was appointed to agree upon all points of difference.Working slowly but steadily, the commissioners settled one question after another, until practically all problems were put upon a permanent working basis.Perhaps the most interesting of the results of this activity was the appointment in 1908 of a permanent International Fisheries Commission, which still regulates that vexing question.
Another source of international complication arose out of the Atlantic fisheries off Newfoundland, which is not part of Canada.
It is off these shores that the most important deep-sea fishing takes place.This fishery was one of the earliest American sources of wealth, and for nearly two centuries formed a sort of keystone of the whole commercial life of the United States.When in 1783 Great Britain recognized American independence, she recognized also that American fishermen had certain rights off these coasts.These rights, however, were not sufficient for the conduct of the fisheries, and so in addition certain "liberties"were granted, which allowed American fishers to land for the purpose of drying fish and of doing other things not generally permitted to foreigners.These concessions in fact amounted to a joint participation with the British.The rights were permanent, but the privileges were regarded as having lapsed after the War of 1812.In 1818 they were partially renewed, certain limited privileges being conceded.Ever since that date the problem of securing the additional privileges desired has been a subject for discussion between Great Britain and the United States.Between 1854 and 1866 the American Government secured them by reciprocity; between 1872 and 1884 it bought them; after 1888 it enjoyed them by a temporary modus vivendi arranged under President Cleveland.
In 1902 Hay arranged with Sir Robert Bond, Prime Minister of Newfoundland, a new reciprocity agreement.This, however, the Senate rejected, and the Cleveland agreement continued.
Newfoundland, angry at the rejection of the proposed treaty, put every obstacle possible in the way of American fishermen and used methods which the Americans claimed to be contrary to the treaty terms.After long continued and rather acrimonious discussions, the matter was finally referred in 1909 to the Hague Court.As in the Bering Sea case, the court was asked not only to judge the facts but also to draw up an agreement for the future.Its decision, on the whole, favored Newfoundland, but this fact is of little moment compared with the likelihood that a dispute almost a century and a half old has at last been permanently settled.
None of these international disputes and settlements to the north, however, excited anything like the popular interest aroused by one which occurred in the south.The Spanish War made it abundantly evident that an isthmian canal between the Atlantic and the Pacific must be built.The arguments of naval strategy which Captain Mahan had long been urging had received striking demonstration in the long and roundabout voyage which the Oregon was obliged to take.The pressure of railroad rates on the trade of the country caused wide commercial support for a project expected to establish a water competition that would pull them down.The American people determined to dig a canal.
