76 ARGUMENT OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



Ibid., p. 152. and adds tliat during the vrhole time he was on the 



89 islands he never heard any one say that there were 

 r^-^*'^- fewer seals in 1892 than in 1891. Evidence as to 



increase in the number of seals is given at length in his 

 c<^inh^r'^-G^a'!s^e!l^^^'Port. Mr. J. Staulcy-Brown, on whose testimony alone 

 Ai)pendi.x,p.385. ti-e Statement is made that '-in 1892 a decrease appears 

 over 1891," simply states that there was a "perceptible 

 Ibid., p.39:i. falling off" of the females, but oifers no proof. Mr. Town- 

 send, who visited the Pribylotf Islands in 1885 and 1891, 

 and made " frequent observations as to the condition of 

 the rookeries," again visited the Pribyloff Islands in 1892 

 for the purpose of studying seal life. He makes no state- 

 ment in his Report as to the comparative number of seals 

 on the rookeries in 1891 and 1892. 

 rage 68. Thougli, as above stated, maintaining that all reference 



to the management of the Pribylolf Islands subsequent to 

 the introduction of pelagic sealing are irrelevant, the 

 United States Counter- Case here affirms that the Report 

 of the British Commissioners "fails to establish a single 

 instance where the management of the islands or the 

 methods employed thereon have been changed since 1880 

 from the ' approjDriate and even perfect' system adopted 

 in 1870," &c. 

 British Com While the British Commissioners, in their Report, do not 

 po'rt.' paras. ^hi\ ti'cat the ycars here referred to as a separate period, they 

 cuj-GGu, 684, 694; show that thc methods employed on the islands, from the 

 " **^* first, and including these years, were injurious, and caused, 



in the main, a general diminution in the number of seals 

 resorting to the islands. They show, in particular, that in 

 these years the standard weight of skins was deliberately 

 reduced in order to permit younger and yet younger seals 

 to be killed, and that the injurious effects of driving became 

 yearly intensified. 



The "words quoted from the British Commissioners' Report 

 in the above extract from the United States Counter-Case, 

 moreover, entirely misrepresent the meaning of the Com- 

 missioners as separated from their context. In the Com- 

 missioners' Rei^ort the sentence from which they are taken 

 reads as follows : 



Ibid., para 602. I^ sliort, from a transcendental point of view, the metlioda proposed 

 were appropriate and even perfect, but in practical execution, and as 

 judged by the result of a series of years, they proved to be faulty and 

 injurious. 



Reverting to the reiterated contention of the 



90 United States, that all references to the condition of 

 ^"g" ^8. the Pribyloff Islands after the introduction of pelagic 



sealing are irrelevant; — this is in no way admitted. The 

 Commissioners were to inquire into all the causes affect- 

 ing seal life and leading up to the present conditions, which 

 are in the paragraph here referred to spoken of as depletion 

 of the Pribyloff rookeries. It would be unreasonable to 

 omit from consideration the influence of Idllingandmethods 

 on the islands during the last ten or twelve years. More- 

 over, the methods ado])ted on the islands should have been 

 such as to provide for causes of decrease generally, when 

 these should occur. If there had been no pelagic sealing, 

 bad seasons or other natural causes might equally have 



