Blaine, however, did not lose everything.

The treaty contained the extraordinary provision that the arbitration tribunal, in case it decided against the United States, was to draw up regulations for the protection of the seal herds.

These regulations when drafted did not prove entirely satisfactory, and bound only the United States and Great Britain.

It required many years and much tinkering to bring about the reasonably satisfactory arrangement that is now in force.

Yet to leave to an international tribunal not merely the decision of a disputed case but the legislation necessary to regulate an international property was in itself a great step in the development of world polity.