Excerpt from Report Relative to the Alaskan Boundary Question: Victoria, B. C., 15th August, 1896

Turning to annexures Nos. 23 and 26 it will be clearly seen that Mr. T. F. Bayard, who was the United States Secretary of State in 1885, is entirely astray in his letter of instructions to the United States Ambassador at London, Mr. E. J. Phelps, when he says that his convie tion is that it was the intention of the negotiators that the boundary line should directly follow the broad and natural channel of Portland Canal and extend, if need be, inland in the same direction until the range of hills at or near the 56th parallel of latitude were reached. He concludes his rendering of this portion of the treaty by stating, it is not therefore to be conceived that this part of the boundary line can ever be called in question between the two governments. (see No.

Mr. Phelps, writing under Mr. Bayard's instructions to Lord Salisbury, 19th January, 1886, says, inter alia, no record has been found in print or otherwise, as far as sought, of the circumstances attending the drawing up of the anglo-russian Treaty of 1825 which would throw light on the understanding of the negotiators 011 this point. The foregoing statement is not according to fact. A reference to Statement D (no. As well as to several other annexures, cannot fail to show the fallacy of the assertions both of the United States Secretary of State and his Ambassador.

By glancing at the extracts from Canadian and British newspapers which have been discussing this boundary question, and which I have quoted, it will be seen that their remarks are fair and temperate. The same cannot, from our standpoint perhaps, be said of the strictures which have appeared in the United States public prints. Nearly all of them display a spirit of hostility to Great Britain.

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