ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 225 



The President. Is that in accordance with what yon have said! I 

 think yon stated that diminntion has been taking place since 1884 or 

 at least since the Alaska purchase, which was in 1807. 



]Mr. Carter. This report does not state any diminution at successive 

 periods; nor does it state the beginning of the diminution. 



The President. Your statement I believe is that the draft of one 

 hundred thousand seals a year would not afl'ect the condition of the 

 herd? 



Mr. Carter. That is my statement; that is if pelagic sealing Avere 

 not carried on. 



The President. That draft was observed for several years after the 

 Alaska purchase. 



Mr. Carter. Yes. It will be observed that there was a prodigious 

 taking just prior to the establishment of regulations by the United 

 States which diminished the numbers of the herd a great deal. That 

 diminution began then in 1809; but unless that had been increased by 

 pelagic sealing I have no doubt that thedraft of one hundred thousand 

 a year could be maintained. But I take the statement of these Com- 

 missioners that "since the Alaska purchase a marked diminution in 

 the number of seals on and habitually resorting to the Pribylof Islands 

 has taken place; that it has been cumulative in its eti'ect and that it is 

 the result of excessive killing by man." I take that finding to mean 

 this: That this herd of seals is at the present time in the course of 

 extermination, and that that extermination is due to killing by the 

 hand of man. I take those two facts and that is all that is neces- 

 sary for the purpose of establishing a full foundation for the property 

 argument. 



It follows from that fact that fur-seals must perish unless their 

 killing is regulated; and it follows from that that all unregulated killing- 

 is wrong. It follows, I say, from that that the extermination of the 

 seals which is in progress is due to unregulated killing. I do not say 

 now where unregulated. It follows that all unregulated killing is wrong, 

 because it leads to destruction. We know that there is a mode of regu- 

 lated killing by which the race can be preserved, and that is by confin- 

 ing it to the Prybilof Islands; and we know that sealing ujion the high 

 seas cannot be regulated. All unregulated sealing is wrong. Sealing 

 upon the high seas is, and must be, unregulated , because no discrimina- 

 tion is possible between the stock and the increase; and, more than 

 that, the attack of the pelagic sealers is principally upon the stoclc, and 

 7iot upon the increase, for wherever a single female is killed the stock 

 is struck directly. 



Therefore, standing upon the mere finding of this joint report there 

 is fact enough upon which all the conclusions of my argument may be 

 sustained. 



There are some technical objections that are urged against the award 

 of property. It is said, you cannot identify these senls; that the seals 

 found upon the Pribilof Islands may perhaps come from the Com- 

 mander Islands. As I have already said, that is founded upon conjecture. 

 In dealing with a large subject like this the mere possible circumstance 

 that there might be a few individuals intermingling is of no consequence 

 at all. No judicial Tribunal would take notice of it at all. The great 

 fact is obvious, and I think admitted, that the great bulk of the herd 

 which goes on the Northwest Coast of America and between the Pri- 

 bilof Islands and the state of California has its breeding place at the 

 Pribilof Islands; and every individual of it at some time or other, 

 visits those islands and submits itself to the power of man there. 

 B Sj PT XII 15 



