40 ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 



and delivered to Liin tlie re.sult of the coiisldeiation and reflection 

 Avliicli President Harrison Lad given to the snbject. This is on tlie 22nd 

 of January, 1890. 



Sir Charles Eussell. If yon will pardon me one moment you have 

 only read one of those two despatches to which I referred. One was 

 the one I requested, and the otlier immediately followed it. 



Mr. Carter. I did not intend to read it unless you desired it. 



vSir Charles Russell. Not at all. Do not go to that trouble. 



Mr. Carter. I now read the letter of Mr. Blaine, January 22, 1890: 



Mr. Blaine to Sir JiiJiaji Pauncefoie. 



DErARTMENT OE State, Washington, January 22, 1890. 



Sir: Several weeks bave elapsed since I bad the lioiiorto receive tlironfj^li the hands 

 of Mr. Edwardes copies of two dispatches from Lord Salisbury complaining of the 

 course of the United States revenue-cntter Hush in interce])ting Canadian vessels 

 sailing under the British flag and engaged in taking fur seals in the waters of the 

 Behring Sea. 



Subjects which could not be postponed have engaged the attention of this Depart- 

 ment and have rendered it impossible to give a formal answer to Lord Salisbury 

 until the present time. 



In the opinion of the President, the Canadian vessels arrested and detained in the 

 Behring Sea were engaged in a pursuit that was in itself contra bonos mores, a pursuit 

 which of necessity involves a serious and ]iermaneut injury to the rights of the 

 Government and poojtle of the United States. To establish this ground it is not 

 necessary to argue the question of the extent and nature of the sovereignty of this 

 Government over the waters of the Behring Sea; it is not necessary to explain, cer- 

 tainly not to define, the powers and privileges ceded by His Imperial Majesty the 

 Em])eror of Russia in the treaty by which the Alaskan territory was translerrcd to 

 the United States. The weighty considerations growing out of the acquisition of 

 that territory, with all the rights on land and sea inseparably connected therewith, 

 may be safely left out of view, while the grounds are set I'orth upon which this 

 Government rests its Justitication for the action comjjlained of by Her Majesty's 

 Government. 



It can not be unknown to Her Majesty's Government that one of the most valuable 

 sources of revenue from the Alaskan possessions is the fur-seal fisheries of the 

 Behring Sea. Those fisheries had been exclusively controlled by the Government of 

 Russia, without interference — or without (]uestion, from their original discovery 

 until the cession of Alaska to the United States in 1867. From 1867 to 1886 the 

 possession in which Russia had been undisturbed was enjoyed by this Government 

 also. There was no interruption and uo intrusion from any source. Vessels from 

 other nations passing from time to time through Behring Sea to the Arctic Ocean in 

 pursuit of whales had always abstained from taking part in the cai>ture of seals. 



This uniform avoidance of all attempts to take fur seal in those Avaters had been a 

 constant recognition of the right held and exercised iirst by Russia and subsequently 

 by this Government. It has also been the recognition of a fact now held beyond 

 denial or doubt that the taking of seals in the open sea rapidly leads to their 

 extinction. This is not only the well-known opinion of experts, both British and 

 American, based upon prolonged observation and investigation, but the fact had 

 also been demonutrated in a wide sense by the well-nigh total destruction of all seal 

 fisheries except the one in the Behring Sea, which the Government of the United 

 States is now striving to preserve, not altogether for the use of the American people 

 but for the use of the world at large. 



The killing of seals in the open sea involves the destruction of the fem.ale in com- 

 mon with the male. The slaughter of the female seal is reckoned as an immediate 

 loss of three seals, besides the future loss of the whole number which the bearing 

 seal may produce in the successive years of life. The destruction which results from 

 killing seals in the open sea proceeds, therefore, by a ratio which constantly and 

 rapidly increases, and insures the total extermination of the s]>ecies within a very 

 brief period. It has thus become known that the only proper time for the slaughter 

 of seals is at the season when they betake themselves to the land, because the land 

 is the only place where the necessary discrimination can be made as to the age and 

 sex of the seal. It would seem, then, by fair reasoning, that luttions not ])ossessing 

 the territory upon which seals can increase their numbers by natural growth, and 

 thus afibrd an annual supply of skins for the use of nuinkind, should refrain from 

 the slaughter in open sea wliere the destruction of the species is sure and swift. 



After the acquisition of Alaska the Government of the United States, through 

 competent agents working under the direction of the best experts, gave careful 



