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or principles, that this tribunal would establish for the protection of 

 fur-seals. 



The destruction of the fur-seal species in the southern lieniisphere, 

 in a commercial sense, had already resulted from iiuliscriminate 

 slaughter on land and sea. The slaughter had been conducted as a 

 matter of right upon the idea that none of those countries had treated 

 the fur-seals as domestic animals, or animals that were attached to 

 the soil, or as domesticated animals entitled to protectit)n as property, 

 but had permitted them to be treated as wild animals, subject to cap- 

 ture by everyone at his pleasure. The people of the United States 

 and of Canada, and of many other countries, had exercised this 

 assumed right of capture of fur-seals in tbe Antarctic Seas until 

 within a recent period. 



After the southern herds had been virtually destroyed, the coloniza- 

 tion of Europeans in extreme southern latitudes led to the investigation 

 of this subject and the enactment of laws for the prote(^tion of fur- 

 seals in the hope that their numbers could be thus restored. These 

 efforts are most noteworthy in the British colonies of Kew Zealand and 

 the Cape of Good Hope. These legislative ijrovisions were tentative 

 rather than conc^lusive in their operation upon the right of i)elagic 

 hunting, within the prescribed limits of protection, by the people of for- 

 eign countries. While foreigners were included in the general terms 

 of the statutes enacted to protect fur-seals, room was left for the ques- 

 tion whether they could be rightfully included within the protection of 

 the intern atioiurl law if the pelagic hunters chose to mate objection. 

 In the a,bsence of such statutes, the right of pelagic sealing was not 

 questioned, except in seas and bays that were claimed as being closed 

 for such ]uirposes, such as Behring Sea, the sea of Okhotsk, and the 

 waters in and around the Jai)ancse archipelago. 



By insisting upon peculiar rights and powers of protection over fur- 

 seals in such waters Kussia and Japan had, in a large measure, pre- 

 served their herds from destruction. But there was then, and until 

 recently, no one to assert, in the name of any Government, that pelagic 

 sealing was an invasion of national interests, or rights of property, in 

 fur-seals. The question was not raised by any serious dispute, by other 

 powers, of the right of protection of fur-seals as asserted by Eussia; 

 and her policy stood opposed to the alleged right, in a negative way 

 rather than by an active assertion attended with serious controversy 

 or force. Such respect was paid to her well-known attitude on the sub- 



