78 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



know more thoroughly the situation as it presented itself six years 

 ago. It is a satisfaction to know that every assumption which they 

 made has been justified, and every prophecy in which they indulged 

 has been fulfilled by subsequent events. 



From the beginning they sought to have the conference at Wash- 

 ington conducted upon the assumption that all political or inter- 

 national questions, rights, or privileges should be ignored; that 

 facts should first be determined, causes got at as far as possible, 

 and remedies proposed, as if an individual were the sole arbiter of 

 the question, and the benefit of the whole people only considered. 

 In fact, at one stage of the conference the following question was 

 submitted as a possible means of clearing the way to what seemed 

 to the Americans to be the real function of the joint commission: 

 " Suppose that one individual controlled the whole matter of killing 

 seals on the Pribilof Islands, in Bering Sea, in the North Pacific, 

 and wherever any of this herd of fur seals are found during their en- 

 tire life, and suppose that the end in view was to so conduct the kill- 

 ing that the largest possible number of commercially valuable skins 

 could be obtained every year perpetually — that is to say, that the 

 owner or controller would be forever benefited in the highest degree 

 by the existence of the herd; under these conditions, what would 

 be the best method of killing — by hunting at sea under the most 

 perfect and complete regulations and restrictions that are possible, 

 or by killing males only on land under the most perfect and complete 

 regulations and restrictions that are possible? " 



But from the start it was evident that the British commissioners 

 were determined to discuss and consider all questions from a diplo- 

 matic and political standpoint. There was to be difficulty in agree- 

 ing upon conditions; greater difficulty in determining causes; and 

 practical disagreement as to remedies. At the very first conference 

 strong objection was urged against a part of the letter of instructions 

 which the Secretary of State had communicated to the American 

 commissioners, and which they, in turn, communicated to their 

 British colleagues, receiving in exchange the instructions sent by 

 Lord Salisbury. The obnoxious paragraph was that in which the 

 American commissioners are informed that they need not concern 

 themselves with the question of " the exercise of complete jurisdic- 

 tion by the United States for the protection of seals," it being de- 

 clared that this made it impossible to consider matters relating to 

 the manner of taking seals upon the Pribilof Islands. This assumed 

 obstacle to a full discussion of the problem threatened to interrupt 

 and delay the conferences, notwithstanding the repeated declaration 

 of the Americans that it did not exist, and it became necessary to 

 suggest that there seemed no occasion for concern on the part of the 



