The one source of income which Alaska was known to possess in those days was its seal fisheries.  A great herd of fur-bearing seals lived in the Alaskan waters, and the Government expected to make these seals very profitable to it.

Under the Russian rule, the fur seal regions had been very carefully protected, and when the United States bought Alaska the Government decided to care for the animals in the same way that the Russians had done, allowing only a certain number of seals to be killed each year.

The fisheries were leased to a company called the Alaska Commercial Company of San Francisco, which had the entire rights to them, under certain rules and regulations laid down by the Government.

Soon after Alaska and its seal fisheries came into the possession of the United States, English and American vessels—­the latter not belonging to the Commercial Company—­entered the Bering Sea, and slaughtered any seals they could reach, without regard to the proper rules for seal fishing.

The Company complained to the Government, and in 1887 this seal poaching had become such a serious matter that the United States ordered her revenue cutters up to Bering Sea to protect her interests.

Several ships were captured by the revenue-officers, and most of them were British vessels.

This opened the way for the dispute between Great Britain and the United States, which has been going on ever since, and has been one of the most troublesome questions our rulers have had to deal with.

Great Britain claimed that she had a perfect right to fish in Bering Sea, and the United States insisted that she had bought all the rights to the fishing when she bought Alaska.

After the quarrel had dragged on for five years, it was finally, in 1892, decided to arbitrate it.

The Committee appointed for this purpose met in Paris, France, in 1893, and finally decided that Russia had never had any rights in the Bering Sea, beyond the usual rights which all countries have of controlling the seas for three miles out from their borders.

Beyond the three-mile limit, the ocean becomes the “high seas,” and is then open to anybody.

It was decided that Russia could not sell the Bering Sea to the United States.

The matter being thus decided, the question of caring for the seals was left as unsettled as ever, and it was most necessary that some arrangement should be made, unless the seals were to be totally destroyed.

The decision at Paris made it necessary that Great Britain should be willing to agree to any plan that should be adopted.

It was therefore shown to the Committee that the seal flocks were in danger of being destroyed, and a set of laws was made that proper care might be taken of the seals.  England and the United States agreed to obey these laws, and it was decided that they should go into effect at once.

As it was supposed that in course of time it might be wise to alter these laws, it was further agreed between England and the United States that they should be looked over every five years, and changed if it was necessary.