69 



Great Britain, for political reasons, applies the doctrines of protec- 

 tion of fur-seals to all her other colonies, and quotes from the interna- 

 tional law the established right of "free fishing" iu justification of 

 Canada for a practice that will result iu the wholesale destruction of 

 the species. While such contentions are insisted upon by this great 

 power, it would be only injurious to the honest portion of the people of 

 the United States for Congress to enact laws to punish pelagic hunting 

 on the Pacific Ocean. Such laws would only cause a repetition of the 

 practice on the ocean that was rife iu Bering Sea before the modus 

 mvendi of 1891 was established — that is to say, it would invite dishonest 

 and unpatriotic citizens of the United States to seek the shelter of the 

 British flag, while in its name and under its power they would defraud 

 and dishonor their own country. It was not until Bering Sea was 

 closed, i)artially, to pelagic hunting of fur-seals iu 1891 and 1892 that this 

 new source of danger to the seal herd was understood or appreciated. 

 The results of closing Bering Sea to iielagic sealing caused sealers 

 from Canada and the United States to concentrate their greatly 

 increased forces in hunting tlie herd on the Pacific and in intercei^ting 

 them in the Aleutian passes. This was not known until after the 

 treaty of February 29, 1892. This is a new and dangerous condition 

 which the treaty expressly included iu the purview of the powers of the 

 Tribunal of Arbitration. It was iu the last days of the negotiation that 

 this important phase of the case was brought to notice and provided 

 for. 



The question as to the justification of this plan of "fishing," if it is 

 fishing, is as new in international law as the occasion that gave rise to 

 it. If it is "fishing," the method of it is new, and was wholly uidcnown 

 when the right of tishing anywhere in the open sea was recognized in 

 the law of nations. If the right now claimed to be lawful under this 

 new method is a total departure from fishing, as it was practiced when 

 the rigiit to fisli was establi.shed, and is fatally destructive of the spe- 

 cies of "fish" against which it is employed, there is no warrant for 

 saying that it is sanctioned by international law. 



The abuses to which this i)ractice must lead, as already developed in 

 two years of experience, show that the claim set up by Canada of a 

 right to "fish" for fur-seal with fleets of vessels and boats, armed with 

 shotguns and prepared cartridges, and to kill them indiscriminately, 

 has but one element of the established right of free fishing, namely, 

 that it is conducted on the high seas. Fishing with shofuuus u the 



