202 ARGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



The first observation in relation to this suggested scheme which we 

 have to make, is that it begins with a restriction, not upon pelagic seal- 

 ing, but upon the taking of seals upon the PriMlof Islands, proposing 

 a restriction of that to 50,000 annually. This is wholly inadmissible. 

 Whatever the distinguished Commissioners may think proper or desir- 

 able in the way of restriction upon the action of the United States 

 upon its own soil, it never occurred to the Government of Great Brit- 

 ain to ask that that nation should submit the exercise of its sovereign 

 power to the authority of any tribunal; nor have we any reason to sup- 

 pose that the diplomatic representatives of Great Britain, at any time 

 in the course of the negotiations which resulted in the Treaty, imagined 

 that any admissible scheme of regulations could embrace a limitation 

 upon the killing of superfluous males upon the hind, to the end that 

 females might be killed upon the sea. It is enough to say that the 

 Treaty strictly confines the regulations which the Tribunal may consider 

 to snch as are "outside the jurisdictional limits of the respective gov- 

 ernments." 



But let this pass in the present discussion, for we desire to consider 

 the sufficiency of the proposed regulations upon the face of them. In 

 substance, the scheme purports to be, so far as pelagic sealing is con- 

 cerned, a mere interposition of additional difficulties in the prosecution 

 of it by restricting it in place and time. It establishes a prohibited 

 zone, with a radius of 20 miles from the islands, confines all pelagic 

 sealing to the period between the 1st of May and the 15th of September 

 in each year, and forbids entrance into Bering Sea before the 1st of July 

 in any year. There are several observations immediately suggested by 

 this scheme, which is declared by the contrivers of it to afford "the 

 requisite degree of protection." 



(1) In the first place it does not purport to restrict the number of seals 

 so killed at sea to less than 08,000, unless the killing of that number is 

 practically impossible under the conditions imposed. What guaranty 

 or assurance is there that 08,000 females will not still be slaughtered 

 under the limited conditions'? All that is requisite to this end is the 

 employment of an additional force of vessels and men, and this is easily 

 possible, and will certainly be supplied if the price of skins will justify 

 it. We know this would be the case, for it must be taken as certain 

 that the force of pelagic sealers would be largely increased at the price 



