68 



the fur-seals iu their ainiual initiations in search of food, aud causes 

 them to be \\ayLaid when they are bearing the future product, on which 

 the preservation of the species depends, to that phxce where, for all 

 time, so far as we know, they have gone to beget, deliver, and nurture 

 their ofi'spring. It has also a location near to the narrow passes 

 through which these seals must pass on their journey to and from the 

 Pribilof Islands. Tliere they are waylaid and captured without dis- 

 crimination as to age or sex and while they are at the absolute mercy 

 of the hunters. They can easily concentrate there, in the open ocean, 

 with vessels enough to exterminate the species by an ambuscade that 

 the seals can not possibly avoid. 



If Canada sl'.ares the zeal for the preservation of the fur-seal species 

 professed by Great Britain in her correspondence with Eussia and the 

 United States, and should exhibit practically her concurrence in the 

 legislation of all the other British colonies that are directly interested 

 in fur-seals, she would find ample opportunity to legislate for their protec- 

 tion. The earliest practice of pelagic sealing in the waters of the North 

 Pacific of which anything is definitely known, was conducted by Indians 

 in the Straits of San Juan de Fuca, one-half of which ocean highway 

 belongs to Canada under a treaty with the United States. Pelagic 

 hunting is still conducted in these straits; and it is from those waters 

 that nearly every sealing vessel is fitted out. It is there that the protec- 

 tion of the British flag is afforded to citizens of the United States to 

 shelter them in violating the laws and i^ublic policy of their own coun- 

 try. It is in those waters that the pelagic catch of seal skins are assem- 

 bled and sent to market. The hunting of fur-seals on the ocean at the 

 Xiasses into Bering Sea, and in that sea and in Russian and Japanese 

 waters, is a great leading industry of the inhabitants of Vancouver 

 Island. If the Pacific ports of the British possessions in America were 

 closed to such trafiic the seal herds would scarcely need other protection. 



With all these opportunities, Canada takes no part in any legislation 

 for protecting fur-seals in the Pacific Ocean and is wholly out of sym- 

 pathy with the professions of Great Britain of favor for these just and 

 high purposes. Canada seems to have no respect for the opinion 

 expressed in the legislation of other countries, and especially by all 

 British provinces interested in the preservation of fur-seals; but, to 

 maintain its hold on the seal herds, it urges Great Britain to insist that 

 her people have the right, under the pretext of fishing, to appropriate 

 to themselves any fur-seals found in the sea. 



