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the Arbitrators upon the various questions of right or issues of fact 

 to be determiued by them, aud I ask no expression of opinion touch- 

 ing any of tliose questions in advance of their being reached in the 

 regular course of our proceedings in conference. But as indicating 

 the grounds upon which a declaration is asked at this time, as to the 

 powers of this Tribunal under the treaty, I may say that there is a 

 large amount of evidence in the record tending to show that tlie 

 hunting and taking of these fur seals, according to the methods now 

 j)racticed by pelagic sealers in the open waters either of the Bering 

 Sea or of the North Pacific Ocean, if continued, will certainly result at 

 no distant day in the complete extermination of the race. My purpose 

 is only to show that the power to prescribe regulations, which expressly 

 or by their i)ractical operation will prohibit pelagic sealing, was 

 intended to be conferred and has been conferred by the treaty, with 

 respect to the waters both of Bering Sea and of the North Pacific 

 Ocean, traversed by these far seals in their going from and returning 

 to the Pribilof Islands. 



This Tribunal, I insist, has not been constituted for the purpose of 

 conserving the interests of the Canadian and American sealers who, 

 within the past ten years, have devised a mode of taking these fur 

 seals in the ox)eu seas, by means which, all concede, are destructive, 

 because not admitting of any discrimination as to sex, nor, still less, of 

 any discrimination between females that are heavy with young and 

 those that have not been impregnated. We are not here with authority 

 to make an award, simply by way of compromise, so that each side in 

 this dispute may have an opportunity to say that it has not been 

 entirely unsuccessful in its contentions before this Tribunal. Our 

 authority has a much wider field of operation. If the repeated avowals 

 of the two nations, who seek an amicable settlement of their differences 

 by means of arbitration, are not to be wholly discredited, we are here, 

 in their names, and by their joint authority, to protect aud preserve 

 this race of animals from extermination if we find that concurrent 

 regulations to that end are necessary. A foilure or refusal to exercise 

 the power, plainly given, to prescribe such regulations as are neces- 

 sary to prevent the extermination of this race of useful animals, will, in 

 my judgment, wholly defeat the principal object for which this Tribunal 

 was created. 



Matters involving the jurisdiction and power of the Tribunal to deal 

 >vith every aspect of this case, as it may affect the supreme object of 

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