252 ORAL ARGUMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. PHELPS. 



This table bc,^ins with the year 1872 and ends with the year 1882. 

 That covers 11 years therefore. It assumes the theoretical calculation 

 of the last table. It gives the catch for each year as derived from 

 actual figures in the evidence the tables given by the American Com- 

 missioners of the pelagic catch, and it figures out upon that basis the 

 net loss to the herd by the destruction of the number of females which 

 the table shows were actually taken. 



That requires a word of explanation before leaving it. We have 

 assumed that for the purpose of this table, all the seals shown to have 

 l>een taken by pelagic sealing are females. Of course, that mig'ht at 

 the threshold be challenged. We do it for this reason : In the first 

 place 85 per cent are proved to be females. Then it is shown by a 

 ^reat body of evidence what common sense indicates sufficiently with- 

 •out any evidence, that a great many more seals are necessarily 

 destroyed by shooting in the water than can possibly be saved, and 

 that of the proportion of seals that are lost, the same proportion are 

 females as among those that are saved, so that if 85 per cent of the 

 seals saved are females, 85 of those lost are females, and when you add 

 a very small percentage to what the evidence shows is the actual loss, 

 it is a very moderate assumption that the number of seals destroyed, 

 wasted and lost is equal to the entire number of seals saved, male and 

 female. Therefore we have felt it right — and the figures sustain us — 

 in treating the pelagic product that is saved as all of them being females. 



JSTow what is the result? The result is that the number of females 

 killed in those ten years, because although 11 years are covered, in one 

 year, namely, that of 1873, the catch is not given — the number of 

 females lost to the herd aside from those perishing from natural conse- 

 quences is 137,024. That is the actual result; that is at the end of 

 1882. Now if you Vvill kindly turn over the leaf to table C, this is car- 

 ried forward, so as to show the number of females which would have 

 been alive in 1880 except for pelagic sealing, and which would have 

 appeared on the breeding grounds in 1891, three years later. It is a 

 carrying forward of the same figures with the addition of the catch in 

 the years subsequent to 1882— from 1882 to 1889; and on the same 

 basis of calculation yon find as the result of these figures, that the 

 female seals on the breeding grounds in the year 1891, in consequence 

 of the ascertained pelagic catch, would be 483,420, in round numbers, 

 .500,000 of fen uile breeding seals destroyed by the pelagic catch, and by 

 jiothing else: I respectfully invite attention to those figures. 



Lord Hannen. — You have invited a question upon this table, I 

 believe. 



JNIr. Phelps, — Certainly, my Lord. 



Lord Hannen. — Does that take account of any female born to replace 

 those supposed to be used? 



Mr. Phelps. — Yes. 



Lord Hannen. — It does take that into account. 



Mr. Phelps. — Yes, it takes an account of the perpetual birth-rate 

 as well as the decrease. In the first table that is made very plain by 

 iidding every year the increment and deducting the loss from natural 

 causes. Those are figures that are applied to the pelagic catch, and 

 the consequence of the figures is, that the loss from the pelagic catch 

 to the herd is in round numbers 500,000 breeding females — not quite 

 that. Mr. Carter has suggested a correction, that naturally enough 

 escaped me, that this 483,420 is subject to one deduction that is not 

 made in the table. It is a little too large. It is subject to the deduc- 

 tion of those who would have died between 1889 and 1891, from natural 

 ,*auses. 



