212 ARGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



of any decrease in the numbers of seals, and that there is, therefore, 

 inherent an automatic principle of regulation sufficient to prevent the 

 possible destruction of the industry if practiced only at sea." 1 



But what if other things should not be equal, as they certainly would 

 not be? What if, as the supposed difficulties in capturing seals were 

 increased, making it impossible for the same force to make the same 

 catch in the same time, and thus diminishing the supply offered in the 

 market, the price of -shins should rise, as it certainly would? Would 

 the effect be anything except to stimulate the pursuit, bring into play 

 a greater energy and skill, attract a larger force, and thus lead to an 

 equal, and probably a much larger catch? In the whale fishery the 

 price of the product continually rising so stimulated the pursuit as to 

 attract a continually augmenting force, with the result of nearly exter- 

 minating some of the species. The fate of the sea otter had been the 

 same. But we need not go further than the statistical tables of pelagic 

 sealing furnished by the Commissioners. What ever may have been the 

 increase of difficulty in obtaining seals consequent upon the increased 

 pursuit, the price has afforded a stimulus sufficient to bring into the 

 held a continually augmenting force, and has thus brought the aggre- 

 gate of the pelagic catch from 1^,000 in 188.! to 08,000 in 1891. 



(10.) Tn conclusion it is submitted that the scheme proposed by the 

 Commissioners of Great Britain is a contrivance, not for the preservation 

 of the seals, which was by the Treaty made the sole object of their in- 

 quiries and labors, but for the promotion of pelagic sealing, and, conse- 

 quently, for the destruction of the seals. This is its character even upon 

 their own views. They insist that the slaughter of 100,000 young males 

 upon the Probilof Islands was, even before pelagic sealing was prosecu- 

 ted, an excessive draft rapidly tending to a destruction of the herd; 

 and yet their scheme directly and necessarily involves a slaughter of 

 many more than 100,000 seals of which more than half will be females. 



It is believed that the Tribunal will not fail to perceive that a thor- 

 ough consideration of the question of the feasibility of any system of 

 regulating pelagic sealing which would permit that business to be 

 prosecuted, and yet secure the herd from extermination, ending, as it 

 must, in a conviction that such a system is not feasible, leads, by a 

 somewhat different path, to the same conclusion which is reached by a 



1 Report of Dr. Com., p. 19, sec. 118. 



