290 ORAL ARGUMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. PHELPS. 



whether tliey are licensed or not. Then they say, let it carry a partic- 

 ular tia^. We do not care about that. Tiiat does not concern us at 

 all. They could carry any fla"" they liked, subject to the laws of their 

 own country. Tlien they say, let them keep a log. What is that worth. 

 Only this, that when Ave charge a vessel with having transgressed any 

 regnlations the log would show they had not. You would not find 

 a sealer coming into Court with a log showing he had broken the 

 regulations. 



They are paltry, I say, these Eegulations, and if they attach any 

 importance to them, they are quite at liberty to adopt them, because 

 they are Eegulations we never objected to or asked for; they can do us 

 no harm, nor can they do us any good; therefore they may be dis- 

 dismissed from consideration. 



But what are the Regulations as put forth theoretically to save the 

 seals. They are two: — a zone of 20 miles round the Pribilof Islands, 

 and a close season extending from the 15th of ^^eptember, after every 

 seal is out of the sea round to the 1st July, which is the earliest date 

 at which they come back again. Those are the two provisions that are 

 really set forth by ray learned friends as an answer to the enquiry sug- 

 gested to the Tribunal by these two nations, what is necessary to be 

 done for the protection of the seal. 



Let us see exactly where those two will come out; I examine theirs 

 first, to show the utter futility of them, that they are not worth the 

 paper on which they were written, that we do not ask for any such thing 

 as that, and that they would be but a mockery — keeping the word of 

 promise to the ear and breaking it to the heart. 



They say in language and in one of these Regulations — at least, Sir 

 Richard Webster says in his argument, you must keep the vessels at 

 home and not permit them to set out till the 1st May. Why? Because 

 he argues and supposes — I am bound to presume so, especially if he has 

 not looked into the sort of evidence I am going to call your attention 

 to — If you keep the vessels at their ports till the 1st May, they will not 

 catch the migration of the seals in time to destroy the pregnant females, 

 except perhaps in the case of steam vessels which could more rapidly 

 overtake the migration of the herd. They would be safe from its pur- 

 suit if they do not set out till May, and setting out in May, they will 

 have the pleasure of chasing across the sea a flight of animals that is 

 so far ahead of them they cannot possibly overtake them. Then what 

 are they going to do with themselves if they cannot enter the Behring 

 Sea till the 1st July wliich is as early as is any use. How are they 

 going to spend the months of May and June, being at sea in jmrsuit of 

 a body of seals that they cannot catch, and excluded from Behring Sea 

 till the 1st July. It is no use to go there, unless they could intercept 

 the pregnant females between the Aleutian Chain and the Islands. 

 What is the sense of the sealers doing that, we do not learn from my 

 learned friend. 



Now I will ask General Foster to be kind enough to jjoint out this on 

 the nmp. 



Let us see what time they arrive at the Pribilof Islands. 



The testimony does not differ and the Commissioners do not differ. 

 The United States Commissioners say that the old breeding males begin 

 to arrive on the Islands the last week in April, and by June the 2(>th 

 they are all located. The British Commissioners say the same thing. 

 The United States Commissioners say the bachelor seals begin to arii\e 

 early in May and large numbers are on the hauling ground by the end 

 of ]\Iay or first week in June. Tlie British Commissioners say with the 

 main body of the full grown bulls, a large i)rox)ortion of the bachelors 



