214 



gestioii has been repeated here, that the present depleted condition of 

 this race is due largely, if not principally, to unreasonably large drafts 

 made, for many years past, upon male seals while they were on the 

 breeding grounds, whereby vast numbers of that sex, competent for 

 service, and which ought to have been preserved for purposes of repro- 

 duction, have been killed. This suggestion is unsup])orted by any fair 

 view of the evidence. What has been said on that subject by some wit- 

 nesses, notably by Prof. Elliott, is in gross exaggeration of the facts. 

 j^o complaint can be justly made of the rules that have been prescribed 

 by the United States in regulation of the taking of these seals on the 

 islands. And it must be conceded that those rules, if observed, do not 

 admit of the taking of an undue proportion of males. Tlie killing of 

 female seals on the islands is absolutely prohibited. While in particular 

 years there was mismanagement to some extent on the islands, nothing- 

 done or omitted to be done there, at any time within the past fifteen or 

 twenty years, accounts for the recent and extraordinary diminution in 

 the number of seals frequenting those islands during the breeding sea- 

 son. There is, in my judgment, no possible escape from the conclusion 

 that such diminution is the direct result of pelagic sealing. 



What has or has not been done or omitted on the islands, or what 

 may hereafter be done there, can not be made an element in the i)resent 

 inquiry. This Tribunal has no authority to deal with the management 

 of the seals while at their breeding grounds on the islands of St. Paul 

 and St. George, any more than with the mode of taking them within 

 the territorial waters of Canada. The United States would never have 

 submitted to this or to any other Tribunal a question involving its 

 complete control over these seals while on its islands or within its ter- 

 ritorial waters. It would not brook any interference with the authority 

 which appertains to it within its own territorial limits. Proper respect 

 for the Government of that nation compels us to assume that it has 

 the desire to correct, and will correct, any abuses that have existed, 

 or that may hereafter exist, in the conduct of the fur seal industry 

 on the Pribilof Islands; just as we must assume, that the Govern- 

 ments of Great Britain and of Canada, after this Tribunal has made 

 its award, will properly control the taking of seals within territorial 

 waters. 



The two nations here represented took care to exclude from the con- 

 sideration of this Tribunal all matters afifecting their sovereign authority 

 within jurisdictional limits, and therefore restricted inquiry touching 

 the proper protection and preservation of these seals "to concurrent 



