110 ORAL ARGUMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. PHELPS. 



page 11, the letter of Mr. Cbichkine. I read from the translation of it. 

 The correspondence contains the letter in French and the translation 

 as well. It is addressed to the British Ambassador, and is dated the 

 12th February, 1893. Of course, I shall not read all these letters but 

 only such extracts as bear on the points I am concerned with. 



While tbaukiug you, Mr. FAmbassadeiir, for this actiou, of which the Imperial 

 Goveruuient takes uote, I hasten to inform you that the question of the measures to 

 be a<b)pte(l to prevent the flestructiou of tlie seal species has been under considera- 

 tion for some time past, and that 1 have been obliged to await the preliminary results 

 of tliis investigation before replying to the note which you were so good as to address 

 to me. 



In approaching, on the present occasion, the question of the seal fisheries, I must 

 first of all point out to your Excellency that the insufticieney of the strict applica- 

 tion to this matter of the general rules of international law respecting territorial 

 waters has been proved by the mere fact that negotiations were commenced in 1887 

 between the three Powers principally, with the ol)ject of agreeing upon special and 

 exceptional measures. 



That was, as you will readily ijerceive, with reference to the negotia- 

 tion initiated by Mr. Bayard. 



The necessity for such measures has been more lately confirmed by the Anglo- 

 American agreement of 1891. 



That is the modus vivendi. 



Her Majesty's Government, by taking part in these negotiations and in this Agree- 

 ment, have themselves admitted the propriety of a possible departure from the general 

 rules of international law. 



That is, as I understand it, the rule he has just referred to respecting 

 territorial waters, the 3 mile limit. 



A further point to which it would seem important to call the special attention of 

 Her Majesty's Government is the absolutely abnormal and exceptional position in 

 which Russian interests are placed by the stipulations of the Anglo-American Agree- 

 ment. The prohibition of sealing within the limits agreed upon in the modus trircndi 

 of 1891 has, in fact, caused such an increase in the destruction of seals on the Rus- 

 sian Coast, that the complete disappearance of these animals would be only a ques- 

 tion of a short time unless efficacious measures for their protection were taken without 

 delay. 



Then. 



The number of seals to be killed annually is fixed by the Administration in pro- 

 portion to the total number of seals. In the years 1889 and 1890, before the estab- 

 lishment of the Anglo-American modus vivendi, the catch amounted to 55,915 and 

 56,833, while for the years 1891 and 1892 (after the above-mentioned Agreement) the 

 figures fell to 30,689 and 31,315. 



And in another and very different connection, the importance of this 

 experience will come to be seen. I do not pause to remark upon it now. 



On the other hand, according to the statistical information which the Imperial 

 Government has been able to obtain, the quantity of seal-skins of Russian origin 

 delivered by the sealers to the London market, increased during those two years in 

 an infinitely greater proportion. 



That is to say that under the operation of the modus vivendi which 

 XJrecluded the pelagic sealers from the American part of Behring Sea, 

 while the supply of Kussian skins increased in Loudon, it so decreased 

 on the Islands that they had to fall from 50,000 to 30,000. 



According to the observations made by the local Administration, the number of 

 vessels engaged in sealing and seen in the neighbourhood of the CJoramander Islands 

 and Tulenew (Robben) Island has also increased considerably. The l^arbarous and 

 illicit proceedings of these sealers are also proved by the fact, established by sei- 

 zures, that more than 90 per cent, of the seal-skins carried away by them'are those 

 of female seals, who are hardly, if ever, found far from the shore during the sealing 

 season, and whose destruction entails that of all the young which they are suckling. 



