230 ORAL ARGUMENT OP SIR RICHARD WEBSTER, Q. C. M. P. 



total killed, 20G ; 85 1/2 per cent, turned away. This exhausted Zoltoi hauliug grounds 

 for a period of twenty cue days, and it was not available until tlie 19th of July, 

 when again, in connection with the Reef Rookery, the last drive was made, and about 

 3,956 seals were driven; 556 were killed, and 86 per cent turned away. The seals 

 turned away from the several drives invariably returned to the hauling grounds and 

 rookery from which they were driven only to be redriven to the killing held and 

 culled of the few killables that chanced to join them upon their return to the sea 

 from each drive. By referring to the Table marked D., showing the daily killing 

 for this year, and also comparing the same with that of last year, yon will see that 

 from all of the drives the same percentages were turned away as from those I have 

 cited. 



We opened the season by a drive from the Reef Rookery, and turned away 83 1/2 

 per cent., when we sliould have turned away about 15 per cent, of the seals driven, 

 and we closed the season by turning away 86 per cent. 



I commend this to my learned friend, Mr. Carter. 



A fact which proves to every impartial mind that we were redriving the yearlings, 

 and considering the number of skins obtained that it was impossible to secure the 

 number allowed by the lease, that Ave were merelj' torturing the young seals, injuring 

 the future life and vitality of the breeding rookeries to the detriment of the lessees, 

 natives, and the Government. 



The contention is, and it is true, that if you kill a mother with the 

 pup dependent upon her, the pup will die and will not get to be one 

 year or even six months old. It is obvious if this is true, that they 

 find this enormously increasing- proportion of puj)s, something is 

 hai)pening to the two-year olds. 



The President. — Is Mr. Golf still in office on the Islands? 



General Foster. — No, he is not. 



The President. — He has retired ? 



Sir EiCHARD Webster. — ISIow at page 16 he has made an affidavit 

 for the United States, and there is no suggestion that Mr. Goft" is not 

 a witness or a gentleman who has told the truth in these Eeports. 

 Whether or not he may have been too lenient to the lessees I do not 

 care. It is very likely that the lessees were allowed too much, but the 

 fact is this, that these facts — and they are facts — could have been con- 

 tradicted by dozens of persons, if they were not the truth. Would you 

 let me read to the end of that page, if you please? 



It is evident that many preying evils upon seal life — the killing of the seals in 

 the Pacific Ocean along the Aleutian Islands and as they come through the passes to 

 Behriug Sea by the pirates in these waters, and the indiscriminate slaughter upon 

 the Islands regardless of the future life of the breeding rookeries have at last with 

 their combined destructive power reduced these rookeries to their present impover- 

 ished condition to such an unequal distribution of ages and sexes that it is but a 

 question of a few years, unless immediately attended to before the seal family of the 

 Pribilof group of islands will be a thing of the past. 



The President. — I suppose " pirates in the passes" are. 



Sir EiCHARD Webster. — The pelagic sealers. It is only a state- 

 ment that they seal en route, and catch them as they are coming to the 

 Pribilof Islands. 



Senator Morgan. — Caught them in the i)asses. 



Sir EiCHARD Webster. — No, not that they caught them in the 

 passes, but after they have passed throngh. It is a comjjendious 

 expression. 



Mr. President, there is no suggestion of which there is any record in 

 these papers — unless made in some way which I am not cognizant of — 

 with reference to Mr. Goff Avhich can affect his testimony. That the 

 United States did not like Mr. Golf for telling the truth or thought he 

 was too lenient to the lessees does not militate in any way against the 

 statement of fact. Mind you, this is s])okei) to by the independent 

 observer Mr. Elliott who went and saw these things himself and never 

 wrote his Eeport until long after this was written. I should think there 



