March 1867, pass unimpaired to the United States under that treaty? (5) Had the United States any and what right of protection over, or property in, the fur seals frequenting the islands of Bering Sea when such seals are found outside the three-mile limit? In the event of a determination in favour of Great Britain the arbitrators were to determine what concurrent regulations were necessary for the preservation of the seals, and a joint commission was to be appointed by the two powers to assist them in the investigation of the facts of seal life. The question of damages was reserved for further discussion, but either party was to be at liberty to submit any question of fact to the arbitrators, and to ask for a finding thereon. The tribunal was to sit at Paris. The treaty was approved by the Senate on the 29th of March 1892, and ratified by the president on the 22nd of April.
The United States appointed as arbitrator Mr John M. Harlan, a justice of the Supreme Court, and Mr John T. Morgan, a member of the Senate. The British arbitrators were Lord Hannen and Sir John Thompson. The neutral arbitrators were the baron de Courcel, the marquis Visconti Venosta, and Mr Gregers Gram, appointed respectively by the president of the French Republic, the king of Italy, and the king of Norway and Sweden. The sittings of the tribunal began in February and ended in August 1893. The main interest of the proceedings lies in the second of the two claims put forward on behalf of the United States. This claim cannot easily be stated in language of precision; it is indicated rather than formulated in the last of the five points specially submitted by the treaty. But its general character may be gathered from the arguments addressed to the tribunal. It was suggested that the seals had some of the characteristics of the domestic animals, and could therefore be the subject of something in the nature of a right of property. They were so far amenable to human control that it was possible to take their increase without destroying the stock. Sealing upon land was legitimate sealing; the United States being the owners of the land, the industry was a trust vested in them for the benefit of mankind. On the other hand, pelagic sealing, being a method of promiscuous slaughter, was illegitimate; it was contra bonos mores and analogous to piracy. Consequently the United States claimed a right to restrain such practices, both as proprietors of the seals and as proprietors and trustees of the legitimate industry. It is obvious that such a right was a novelty hitherto unrecognized by any system of law. Mr J. C. Carter, therefore, as counsel for the United States, submitted a theory of international jurisprudence which was equally novel. He argued that the determination of the tribunal must be grounded upon “the principles of right,” that “by the rule or principle of right was meant a moral rule dictated by the general standard of justice upon which civilized nations are agreed, that this international standard of justice is but another name for international law, that the particular recognized rules were but cases of the application of a more general rule, and that where the particular rules were silent the general rule applied.” The practical result of giving effect to this contention would be that an international tribunal could make new law and apply it retrospectively. Mr Carter’s contention was successfully combated by Sir Charles Russell, the leading counsel for Great Britain.
The award, which was signed and published on the 15th of August 1893, was in favour of Great Britain on all points. The question of damages, which had been reserved, was ultimately settled by a mixed commission appointed by the two powers in February 1896, the total amount awarded to the British sealers being $473,151.26. (M. H. C.)
BERIOT, CHARLES AUGUSTE DE (1802–1870), Belgian violinist and composer. Although not definitely a pupil of Viotti or Baillot he was much influenced by both. He was very successful in his concert tours, and held appointments at the courts of Belgium and France. From 1843 to 1852 he was violin professor at the Brussels conservatoire. Then his eyesight began to fail, and in 1858 he became blind. His compositions are still often played, and are good, clean displays of technique.
BERJA, a town of southern Spain, in the province of Almeria; on the south-eastern slope of the Sierra de Gádor, 10 m. N.E. of Adra by road. Pop. (1900) 13,224. Despite the lack of a railway Berja has a considerable trade. Lead is obtained among the mountains, and the more sheltered valleys produce grain, wine, oil, fruit and esparto grass. These, with the paper, linen and cotton goods manufactured locally in small quantities, are exported from Adra.
BERKA, a town and watering-place of Germany, in the grand-duchy of Saxe-Weimar, on the Ilm and the Weimar-Kranichfeld railway, 8 m. S. of Weimar. Pop. 2300. It has sulphur baths, which are largely frequented in the summer. Berka was once celebrated for its Cistercian nunnery, founded in 1251. Two m. down the Ilm is the curious castle of Burgfarth, partly hewn out of the solid rock.
BERKELEY, the name of an ancient English family remarkable for its long tenure of the feudal castle built by the water of Severn upon the lands from which the family takes its name. It traces an undoubted descent from Robert (d. 1170) son of Harding. Old pedigree-makers from the 14th century onward have made of Harding a younger son of a king of Denmark and a companion of the Conqueror, while modern historians assert his identity with one Harding who, although an English thane, is recorded by Domesday Book in 1086 as a great landowner in Somerset. This Harding the thane was son of Elnod or Alnod, who is recognized as Eadnoth the Staller, slain in beating off the sons of Harold when they attacked his county. But if Harding the Berkeley ancestor be the Harding who, as the queen’s butler, witnesses King Edward’s Waltham charter of 1062, his dates seem strangely apart from those of Robert his son, dead a hundred and eight years later. Of Robert fitz Harding we know that he was a Bristol man whose wealth and importance were probably increased by the trade of the port. A partisan of Henry, son of the empress, that prince before his accession to the throne granted him, by his charter at Bristol in the earlier half of 1153, the Gloucestershire manor of Bitton, and a hundred librates of land in the manor of Berkeley, Henry agreeing to strengthen the castle of Berkeley, which was evidently already in Robert’s hands. In his rhymed chronicle Robert of Gloucester tells how—
| “A bourgois at Bristowe—Robert Harding Vor gret tresour and richesse—so wel was mid the king That he gat him and is eirs—the noble baronie That so riche is of Berkele—mid al the seignorie.” |
Later in the same year the duke of Normandy granted to Robert fitz Harding Berkeley manor and the appurtenant district called “Berkelaihernesse,” to hold in fee by the service of one knight or at a rent of 100 s. Being at Berkeley, the duke confirmed to Robert a grant of Bedminster made by Robert, earl of Gloucester, and in the first year of his reign as king of England he confirmed his own earlier grant of the Berkeley manor. About this time Robert, who had founded St Augustine’s Priory in Bristol, gave to the Black Canons there the five churches in Berkeley and Berkeley Herness. In their priory church he was buried in 1170, Berkeley descending to his son and heir Maurice.
Berkeley had already given a surname to an earlier family sprung from Roger, its Domesday tenant, whose descendants seem to have been ousted by the partisan of the Angevin. But if there had been a feud between the families it was ended by a double alliance, a covenant having been made at Bristol about November 1153 in the presence of Henry, duke of Normandy, whereby Maurice, son of Robert fitz Harding, was to marry the daughter of Roger of Berkeley, Roger’s own son Roger marrying the daughter of Robert. In his certificate of 1166 Robert tells the king that, although he owes the service of five knights for Berkeley, Roger of Berkeley still holds certain lands of the honour for which he does no service to Robert. This elder line of Berkeley survived for more than two centuries on their lands of Dursley and Cubberley, but after his father’s death Maurice, son of Robert, is styled Maurice of Berkeley. Robert of Berkeley, the eldest son of Maurice, paid in 1190 the vast sum of £1000 for livery of his great inheritance, but, rising with the rebellious
