As the outcome of negotiations opened at Washington in the previous autumn by the Canadian Premier, relative to the seal-killing controversy, an agreement between Great Britain, Canada and the United States was concluded on the 30th of May, 1898, for the creation of a Joint High Commission to negotiate a treaty, if possible, by which all existing subjects of controversy between the United States and Canada should be settled with finality. Appointments to the Commission by the three governments were made soon afterwards, Great Britain being represented by the Lord High Chancellor, Baron Herschell; Canada by Sir Wilfred Laurier, Premier, Sir Richard Cartwright, Minister of Trade and Commerce, and Sir Louis Henry Davies, Minister of Marine and Fisheries; the United States by Honorable John W. Foster, ex-Secretary of State, Senator Charles W. Fairbanks, Senator George Gray, Representative Nelson Dingley, and the Honorable John A. Kasson, Reciprocity Commissioner. Senator Gray having been subsequently appointed on the Commission to negotiate peace with Spain, his place on the Anglo-American Commission was taken by Senator Faulkner. {64} The Joint Commission sat first in Quebec and later in Washington. Among the questions referred to it were those relating to the establishment of the boundary between Alaska and British Columbia; the issues over Bering Sea and the catch of fur seals; the unmarked boundary between Canada and the United States near Passamaqnoddy Bay in Maine and at points between Wisconsin and Minnesota and Canada; the northeast fisheries question, involving the rights of fishing in the North Atlantic off Newfoundland and other points; the regulation of the fishing rights on the Great Lakes; alien-labor immigration across the Canadian-American border; commercial reciprocity between the two countries; the regulation of the bonding system by which goods are carried in bond across the frontier and also the regulation of traffic by international railways and canals of the two countries; reciprocal mining privileges in the Klondyke, British North America and other points; wrecking and salvage on the ocean and Great Lakes coasting waters; the modification of the treaty arrangement under which only one war vessel can be maintained on the Great Lakes, with a view to allowing warships to be built on the lakes and then floated out to the ocean. The sessions of the Joint Commission were continued at intervals until February, 1899, when it adjourned to meet at Quebec in the following August, unless further adjournment should be agreed upon by the several chairmen. Such further adjournment was made, and the labors of the Joint Commission were indefinitely suspended, for reasons which the President of the United States explained in his Message to Congress,