THIRTY-SIXTH DAY, JUNE g^", 1893. 



Sir Charles Eussell. — Mr. President, I was yesterday endeavour- 

 ing to make clear what a very insignificant part pelagic sealing bad 

 played in the depletion of the seal stock at the date at which the 

 United States have fixed, the year 1884, as the year when the marked 

 decreased was observable in the young males. The argument is still 

 stronger if one refers to the year 1879, or to the year 1877, at which 

 dates other witnesses speak of large noticeable decreases; because in 

 those earlier years pelagic sealing was less than in later years. For 

 my purpose 1884 is sufficiently strong. 



I referred yesterday to the figures of the British Commissioners which 

 I was under the impression, as far as the number of seals killed, was 

 more favourable to the case of the United States than those of their 

 own Commissioners; but I find I was not correct in that. Mr. Foster 

 was good enough to point out to me at the time that in earlier years it 

 is not so; but for the purpose I was discussing the distinction is hardly 

 worth entering upon. What I had in my mind was that in earlier years 

 the number of vessels engaged in pelagic sealing was larger when given 

 by the British Commissioners than that given by the United States 

 Commissioners. That was the source of my error. I will not go into 

 elaborate calculations of figures; but I wish the Tribunal to grasp oue 

 or two fjicts which are put forward by the United States and which we 

 assume for the ])urpose of the illustration I am now upon. 



According to the table of mortality to which I yesterday referred, it 

 will be apparent that the United States treat the mortality in the first 

 year of seal life as amounting to 50 per cent. That will not be disputed; 

 the tables show that. They also show what is the mortality between 

 the ages of one and two, and between two and three, and so on; and I 

 wish, therefore, in a sentence to show how those figures would work 

 out on the supposition that 1,000 male pups are born in one year. Of 

 that 1,000 male pups, 500 disappear from natural causes. If there was 

 no pelagic sealing at all, natural causes will occasion the disappearance 

 of 50 per cent., or 500 out of that 1,000. So that of 1,000 male pups 

 born on the Islands, 500 re appear as yearlings; 320 re-appear as two 

 years of age; and 240 only of three years. 



Now bearing that fact in mind if ycui take the largest figure of the 

 pelagic catch suggested by the United States Commissioners although 

 those figures are (if I chose to stop to make it) subject to some dis- 

 count and criticism, yet it will be apparent that to occasion the marked 

 decrease which is said to have been manifest in 1884 — if you multiplied — 

 if you double or quadruple the pelagic sealing you cannot account for 

 the depletion which it is alleged was then observed. Now they have 

 sought to establish the gravity of the charge against pelagic sealing in 

 another way, and it was to that point I was adverting when the Tribu- 

 nal rose yesterday evening, namely, they say we are able to specifiy a 

 particular year in which there was an abnormal number of deaths ot 

 young pups, not by the killer whale, but by some causes which operated 



^0 



