ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR CHARLES EUSSELL, Q. C. M. P. 45 



convenient reference to what I had intended to refer to except that I 

 did not desire to be longer than I could avoid, as showing the straits 

 to which they had then come, namely, that there Avas no curtailment in 

 the number killed. They kept up the 100,0U0. They say : 



72. No such curtailment, however, occurred. The Company holding the lease of 

 these islands on fixed terms were not interfered with, but continued to take tlieir 

 full legal quota of skins without regard to the risk to seal life as a whole. Not only 

 so, but instead of rediicing the catch, the standard of weight of skins taken on the 

 islands was steadily lowered so as to include a younger class of seals under the des- 

 ignation of " kiilables". Instead of skins weighiug 7 or 8 lbs., those of 5 lbs. and 

 (as we have ascertained on excellent authority) even of 4 lbs. and of 3^ lbs. have 

 been taken and Avere accepted by the Company as early as 1889. 



The further evidence that has since been obtained shows that the 

 standard of weight was lowered at a considerably earlier i^eriod; and 

 of course we say upon that that if the interest of the lessees had been 

 tlie i^reservation of the fur-seal species and not to make a profit for 

 themselves as against the rent which they had to pay the United States, 

 and if it had been a question of regarding the interests of the race, that 

 ought to have been a very clear and distinct warning which would have 

 suggested that which Kussian wisdom again and again suggested, as I 

 have shown from the iigures of killing during the Russian control, 

 namely, periods of comparative rest; because it is a very startling and 

 remarkable fact that whereas over the whole Russian period the aver- 

 age was considerably less^I Avill not pledge myself to the exact figure — 

 than forty thousand a year, the average from 1S(J7 down to 1889 works 

 out somewhere very close to the point of one hundred tliousand. And 

 indeed if you -take the exceptional slaughter, as I admit it to be, of 

 L*40,000 in 18G8, the full one hundred thousand would be in fact, I think, 

 maintained. 



They then at the bottom of that page, in paragraph 74, sunnnarize 

 the causes of waste of seal life in the methods actually i)racticed upon 

 the Pribilof Islands. 1 will not read them. And then they proceed to 

 consider the allegations against pelagic sealing. We will see Avhether 

 they deal with this matter fairly or not. They say in paragraph 77 on 

 page 13 : 



77. Against the methods of pelagic sealing two principal lines of criticism and ot 

 attack have been developed, and both have l)een so persistently urged in various 

 ways, that they appear to have acliieved a degree of recognition by the uninformed 

 altogether unwarranted by the facts, in so fav as we have been able to ascertain 

 them, tlujugh in both there is an underlying measure of truth. It is stated (1) that 

 almost the entire pelagic catch consists of females; (2) that a very large proportion 

 of the seals actually killed at sea are lost. 



They then proceed : 



78. It is undoubtedly true that a considerable proportion of the seals taken at sea 

 are females, as all seals of suitable size are killed without discrimination of sex. 

 This is, in part, however, a direct corollary of the extent and methods of killing upflto 

 the breeding islands, where, practicallj', in late years, all uuiks reaching the shore 

 have been legally killable, and where, as a matter of fact, nearly all the young 

 males which land have been persistently killed for some years, with the necessary 

 result of leaving fewer killable males in jiroportion to females to be taken at sea. 



79. The precise bearings on the industry as a whole of the character and composi- 

 tion of the pelagic catch made along various parts of the coast and in Behriug Sea 

 are discussed at greater length elsewhere (^ 633 et seq.), but it may be here noted 

 that the great siirplus of I'emales, resulting i'rom the ijractice just alluded to, has 

 certainly rendered the killing of considerable numbers of these at sea less harmful 

 in its effect than it might otherwise have been. 



"Less harmful than otherwise would have been" I may say means: 

 not only that it tended to restoie the balan(;e but also that a consider- 

 able number of the females so killed were barren females. They then 



