THE BERING SEA CONTROVERSY ONCE MORE, loi 



the joint commission, except in so far as it specially affected seal life 

 in Bering Sea and the measures necessary for its proper protection and 

 preservation. 



" Facts, causes, and remedies " were tlie subjects to be considered. 

 There is an old saying that the flavor of the pudding may often be 

 revealed by chewing the string, and no long and exhaustive inves- 

 tigation was necessary to enable the American commissioners to arrive 

 at what Mr. Clark admits to be the " facts, causes, and remedies " for 

 the Bering Sea problem. Not many weeks were occupied in the 

 field, it is true, for the commission was delayed in its appointment 

 and notification, and the season was nearly over when it reached the 

 islands. But, as Mr. Clark justly remarks, one member of the com- 

 mission, Dr. Merriam, was already exceptionally well informed con- 

 cerning the habits of the fur seal, and some things may be so in 

 evidence that even a physicist can see them. 



It is true that the joint report of the commission of 1891-'92 

 was meager, and the explanation lies close at hand in the unwilling- 

 ness of the American commissioners to swerve from what they were 

 convinced was absolutely true. Mr. Clark will look in vain for 

 the " handwriting of diplomacy mingled Avith that of science," for the 

 appearance of which in the report of the commission of 1897 he 

 offers apologies, except, indeed, it be the diplomacy of going straight 

 at the facts without concealment or evasion, on which Americans have 

 sometimes prided themselves. 



The joint report was limited to that, and only that, on which the 

 commissioners were actually agreed, and the American commissioners 

 have explained in their separate report that had they been willing to 

 concede certain points the joint report would have been greatly aug- 

 mented in volume. Mr. Clark has reviewed the conclusions of the 

 commission of 1897, which he justly considers a most important and 

 valuable document. It has not escaped his attention that in a num- 

 ber of the paragraphs of this report the American commissioners have 

 committed themselves to the approval of several doubtful statements, 

 such as that " the pelagic industry is conducted in an orderly man- 

 ner, and in a spirit of acquiescence in. the limitations imposed by 

 law " ; that a certain number of females may be killed without involv- 

 ing the actual diminution of the herd ; the " tendency toward equilib- 

 rium theory "; that the herd is still far from a stage that threatens 

 extermination, and others. These statements he excuses as " balm 

 for the wounded feelings of the pelagic sealer"; "a concession to 

 diplomacy " ; "a diplomatic concession to take the sting out of the 

 real admission " ; " another concession to diplomacy," etc. I do not 

 \vish to be understood as questioning the necessity or wisdom of in- 

 serting these paragraphs in the joint report, but is it not a little strange 



