ARGUMENT OF GREAT BRITAIN. 93 



if not in all cases. The evidence of Captain Hooper, 



referred to in this connection by the United States (on the TXnited states 



streiigtli of the forty-one seals killed by him), in showing AppMuiix^p! 21V. 



that a considerable proportion of seals in milk killed were 



200 miles from the Pribyloft" Islands, goes far to prove that 



at least this proportion of such seals conld no longer have 



had any interest in or regular connection with those islands, British com- 



and tends to substantiate the remarks made by the Eiitish port, paries u^* 



CoMimisssioners, and those in the Counter-Case of Great i^';itisi, coun- 



,^ ., . J.1 • 1 • ,L ler-Case, pp. 218 



Britain, on this subject. 219. 



On this and following pages of the United States Counter- Page sa. 

 Ca.se (to p. 93), an extended notice is given to the investi- 

 gations of the British Commissioners on the subject of the 

 mortality of young seals in 1891. Care is, however, first 

 taken to describe these examinations as " cursory." The 

 Commissioners are repi-esen ted as endeavouring to "sui)- 

 port a position," and it is added: 



It is. evident, from the efforts made and the theories advanced to 

 explain this mortality that tlie Commissioners considered the presence 

 of these bodies prima facie evidence of the fact they endeavour to 

 disprove. 



Introductory remarks of the above character scarcely 

 lead to the belief that any impartial discus.sion of the facts 

 noted and commented on by the Britisli Commission- 

 113 ers is intended. This is fully borne out by what fol- 

 lows. It is stated : 



These officials [the Commissioners] have, through some strange 

 circumstance, bee;i led into the belief that they were the first to 

 observe this mortality amonu the pups on the rookeries, from which 

 belief they draw the inference that " the death of so many young seals 

 on the islands in 1891 was wholly exceiitional and unprecedented." 



The explanation given in para. 340 of the British Com- 

 missioners' Report is sufficient to show that, in so far as 

 they could ascertain by inquiry upon the islands in 1891, 

 they were tlie first to observe and comment on the mor- 

 tality in question. But if further evidence be required, it 

 will be found that Mr. J, Stanley-Brown says: 



By the time the British Commissioners arrived [28th .July] the dead Unitcil Statos 

 pups were in sufficient abundance to attract their attention, and they ^'Y^'- '^i'.i''^"^'i^' 

 are, I believe, under the impression that they first discovered them. ^° ' "' ^ ^ ' 



In a foregoing part of the same paragraph, however, 

 Mr. Stanley-Brown had said : 



In the latter part of July 1891 my attention was called to a source of 

 waste, the efficiency [sic'] of which was most startlingh' illustrated. 



But Mr. Milton Barnes, special employe of the United 

 States Treasury on St. Paul Island, is (except in regard to 

 date) even more definite on this point. In a deposition ibid., p. 101. 

 furnished by him, and included in the Ajjpendix to the 

 United States Case, he says: 



One day, during the latter part of August or fore part of September 

 last (exact date forgotten), Colonel .Joseph Murray, one of the Treas- 

 ury Agents, and myself, in company with the British ('ommissioners, 

 Sii (ieorge Baden-Powell and Dr. L)awson, by boat visited one of the 

 seal rookeries of that island, known as Tolstoi or English Bay. On 

 arriving there our attention was at once attracted by the excessive 

 number of dead seal pups, whose carcasses lay scattered profusely over 



