208 ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES 0. CARTER, ESQ. 



land is gone, and when that guard is withdrawn and all protection 

 taken away, that herd of seals is exterminated. It is exterminated for 

 the United States. It is exterminated for these lessees. They can no 

 longer get anything out of it. It is exterminated for the whole world. 

 It is exterminated even in resi)ect to these pelagic sealers, for their 

 occupation is gone also. They are all gone, in a common calamity, and 

 gone very quick, too, after the guard is withdrawn, and that will take 

 place just as soon as it ceases to be protitable to maintain it there. 



Now, there is a supertiuity of young males. That superfluity of 

 young males can be taken upon the islands, and the taking can be lim- 

 ited to that, provided all interference is prevented by sea, provided 

 pelagic sealing is stopped. That fact — although it appears to be man- 

 ifest—that there is a superfluity of young males, is one which I wish to 

 place beyond doubt. We say it amounts to 100,000; but whether it 

 amounts to 50,000 or 100,000 or 200,000, there is a superfluity, and that 

 superfluity can be separated and taken by the United States on those 

 islands without injuring the stock. As I say, tliat seems to be self- 

 evident, but I do not know that it will be admitted, and I choose to 

 state one or two circumstances which prove it. 



We have witnesses long resident upon the islands and in charge of 

 this business, who swear to it; but it is also proved by the overwhelm- 

 ing experience of one hundred years. It is proved by the fact that 

 Eussia, after her occupation of the islands, and while she did not con- 

 fine her draft to this superfluity of males, adopted a course which 

 tended towards the destruction of the herd and came very near destroy- 

 ing it. It is proved by the fact that when she corrected her u)ethods 

 and confined her draft' to this superfluity, in 1816, the lierd continued 

 to increase; so that when twenty years later it passed into the posses- 

 sion of the United States, it had reached as great a magnitude as it 

 had ever had. It is proved, in the next place, by the experience of the 

 United States during more than ten years of their occupation, and 

 until the excessive drafts occasioned by the pelagic sealing made this 

 draft of 100,000 males an undue draft upon the herd. 



Therefore this statement is fully substantiated by the uniform experi- 

 ence on the islands — an experience extending over a period of one 

 hundred years. \t is substantially, I think, admitted by the British 

 Commissioners themselves. 



In Section 37, at page 7, of their report, they say: 



37. Dnnng the early years ol the Russian control, the conditions of seal life were 

 very imiK-rfectly understood, iind but little regard was paid to the subject. A rapid 

 diminution in the number of seals frequenting the islands, however, eventually 

 claimed attention, and improvements of various kinds followed. Among the lirst of 

 the more stringent measures adopted was the restriction of killing to males, which 

 followed from the discovery that a much larger number of males were born than were 

 actually required for service on the breeding "rookeries." The killing of females 

 was practically forbidden on the Pribilof Islands about 1817, and on the Commander 

 Islands probably about the same date. 



I pass to section 41 : 



41. It is also noteworthy, that for many years previous to the close of the Russian 

 control (probably from about 1842) under a more enlightened system of rnanagemeut 

 than that of the earlier years, the number of seals resorting to the islands was 

 slowly increasing, and that the average number taken annually was gradually 

 raised during these years from a very low ligure to about 30,000, without apparently 

 reversing this steady improvement in the numbers resorting to the islands. 



I pass to section 116, on page 19 : 



116. It is, moreover, equally clear, from the known facts, that efficient protection 

 IS much more easily afforded on the breeding islands than at sea. The control of the 



