228 ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR RICHARD WEBSTER, Q. C. M. P. 



four and five-years-old, would have been lessening, and you would Lave 

 had more large seals in i3roi)ortion. Now, M'li;it do we find. It is in 

 evidence that there are fewer four or five-year-old, and a large propor- 

 tion of pups, and that shows, therefore, that some other cause than the 

 death of the pups, or the death of the mother and pups, is affecting 

 seal life. 



The President. — It shows something which has iDrevented it, but 

 if there are so many young ones that i)roves that the old bulls do their 

 service. 



Sir EiCHARD Webster. — May I point this out. If I do not make it 

 clear I am sure you will ask me to repeat it. I say the evidence shows 

 pups of one year and two years old are being constantly driven. I say 

 the evidence shows the increasing difficulty of getting a four or five- 

 year old seal. They find a much larger proportion of one and two- 

 year-old seals amongthose driven, that is to say, something has happened 

 wliich prevents seals reaching four or five years, and it must be one of 

 two things that almost every seal of that age is killed, if the driving 

 these young seals prevents them coming to the age of four or five — 

 there is abundant testimony on this, and do not think it is my imagina- 

 tion, because I have not imagined a single thing in this case — I am 

 merely pointing out, supposing in the year 1890 they drive 10,000 seals, 

 and in order to get enough big seals they turn back 80 per cent; and 

 suppose in 1891, driving the same number of seals in order to get an 

 equal number they have to drive them twice and turn back 90 per cent, 

 I say to you as a proposition of mathematics, if the decrease in the total 

 number, had been caused by the death of pups, you would have the 

 proportion of three and four-year-old seals, to the pups, increasing 

 instead of decreasing, whereas if you find in the following year that 

 the proportion of three and four year old seals, or larger seals, has 

 diminished, it means that the one or two year old seals have died or 

 not come to maturity. I challenge criticism upon that argument. 



I say that anybody who will look at this thing fairly and impartially 

 and judicially will be forced to the conclusion that the killing of 30,000 

 mothers and 30,000 pups in the year they are born will increase the 

 proportion of old seals to be found in the herd next year, and that there- 

 fore, if you find that, instead of it being a larger proportion of 4 or 5 

 year old or 3 or 4 year old, a constantly diminishing proportion, some- 

 thing else is diminishing the numbers besides the killing of the pups. 

 I know I speak to gentlemen who are i)erfectly comijetent to criticize 

 any argument I may address to them and that is an argument of which 

 I invite criticism. 



The President. — You have made your construction very clear. 



Sir EiCHARD Webster. — Now, I will digress for a moment, and you 

 will not object as it is in consequence of what you have said, in order 

 to call attention to what Mr. Goff said on this i)articular point; and 

 the passage I lefer to today, at page 15, is directly in point on your 

 question. It is the third part, page 15, at the bottom of that page. 



Now, in opening the season it is customary to secure all the two-year-olds and 

 upwards ])ossible before the yearlings begin to fill up the hauling-grouuds and mix 

 witli the killable seals. By so doing it is much easier to do the work, and the year- 

 lings are not tortured by being driven and redriven to the killing-grounds. Hereto- 

 fore it was seldom that more than 15 per cent of all the seals driven the latter part 

 of June and the first iew days in July were too small to be killed, but this season 

 the case was reversed, and in many instances 80 to 85 per cent were turned away. 

 The accompanying percentage examples will show the dis])osition of this year's 

 drive. The first killing of fur-seals by the lessees was on the 6th of June, and the 

 scarcity of killable seals was apj)arent to all. 



