INTERNATIONAL REGULATIONS OF FISHERIES ON THE HIGH SEAS. I3I 
expedient might be terminated at will by either party upon giving notice to the 
other. 
The fur seals in the Pacific continued to decline so rapidly in numbers that 
in 1896 Great Britain and the United States agreed to the appointment of a 
joint scientific commission to study the fur-seal life in Bering Sea with a view 
to greater protection. The investigations of this—the Jordan-Thompson— 
commission covered the seasons 1896 and 1897, and led to the conclusion that 
the cause of the decline was the killing of females at sea, and that the abolition 
of pelagic sealing was essential to the preservation of the herd. It was expected 
that the joint high commission called at Quebec in 1898 would act upon this 
finding, but unable to reach an agreement on the boundary dispute between 
Canada and the United States, that commission suspended without taking 
action, and the fishery has continued up to the present date under the very 
ineffective arbitration regulations of 1893. 
So far as concerns the actual preservation of the fur seals from commercial 
ruin and extermination, it probably is not too much to say that virtually nothing 
has been accomplished by all the negotiations and arbitrations during the last 
thirty years. And while restriction of the pelagic fishery may have served to 
retard somewhat the exhaustion of this resource, it has been entirely out of 
proportion to the expense involved. 
The official returns show that from 1890 to 1901 the American Government 
expended $3,357,097 for this purpose, as follows: 
United States navy patrol____-.__- AoE Sa Be ive Sia AS soa SneE bole emons $1, 003, 048 
Peta Tete e Te ACTOR ees Sree eee see ee oe Sine eas ee oe ae eee ae I, 299, 735 
TDP RSS WONT TREN eitgt| asc) See eee ee ees ns ee re ee ee 234, 000 
Award of damages, pelagic sealers’ arrest __.___..------------ aN peo ae eee oe saat 473, 151 
Costom) orean—hlompsor CommiswOM. 2-5 oa- 45 oso s oe ce = sae oe se ean ates 30, 000 
(CBSE GN SHTEEIS EE EYES EU a see ae Oe oR 317, 163 
PRG teal epee seen eee ee ae eee eee oreo ee Ses soe 3, 357; 097 
In view of the inefficiency of the regulations established by the Paris tri- 
bunal of 1893 and the great destruction of the herd, the American Government 
has made additional efforts to put a stop to the pelagic fishery. It has pro- 
hibited the fishery to its citizens; and, after ineffectual efforts to induce other 
governments to do likewise, has attempted to reduce the value of the pelts to 
the point where subjects of other governments would find no profit therein, 
employing such measures as branding all female seals on the islands, and inter- 
dicting the importation inte this country of any fur-seal skins taken in the 
pelagic fishery. Probably the most extreme measure was introduced in the 
Fifty-fourth Congress. This bill, which passed the House unanimously, but 
failed in the Senate, required that in the event that the President failed to nego- 
tiate a satisfactory agreement with the Government of Great Britain for the 
preservation of the herd, the Secretary of the Treasury should cause to be 
