278 ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 



for it had been pressed upon them. They have ventured to say, tliat 

 the taking- of females is not necessarily injnrious: they may be barren, 

 and then it is not injarions. That is true. It would not be any dam- 

 age to take barren females; but wlio can tell what females are barren, 

 and what are not"? Nobody, except Elliott, whose report my learned 

 friends very much wished to get in evidence. He knows ! He can tell 

 a barren female from others! He has recognized them on the islands, 

 and counted them. He says there were 250,000 ! ] >ut no other man can 

 tell. These Commissioners were on the Islands. They could not tell 

 how many barren females there were, or whetlier there were any. But 

 I agree, if they could conline the taking to barren females, it w^ould not 

 do so much damage; but certainly it cannot be so confined, and they 

 do not pretend to so confine it. 



What is their own view of taking females that are not barren? They 

 have expressed it thus; I read from section 80 of their report, which is 

 on page 13 : 



80. To assume that tlie killjnii- of animals of tlie female sex is in itself reprehen- 

 sible or inhuman, is to make an assumption affecting all cases where :minials are pre- 

 served or domesticated by mnn. Most civilized nations, in accordance with the 

 dictates of humanity as well as those of self-interest, make legislative ])rovisiou for 

 th(^ protection of wild animals during the necessary periods of l)ringiug forth and 

 of rearing their young; but the killing of femsiles is universally recognized as per- 

 missibh; if only to preserve the normal ]!)roportion of the sexes. 



That is true, in cases where the animal can be cultivated in all parts 

 of the globe at ]>leasure; but untrue where you can breed it only in a 

 very few particular spots. [Continites reading:] 



This is the case in all instances of game preservation and stock raising, and, in 

 the particular example of the fur-seal, it is numerically demonstrable that, in main- 

 taining a constant total of seals, a certain proportion of females should be annually 

 available for killing. The killing of gravid females must, however, be deprecated 

 as s])ecifically injurious, and in any measures proposed for the regulation of seal 

 hunting should receive special attention. 



What attention have they given to it here"? What provisions have 

 they made or suggested for the protection of gravid females? None 

 whatever; and of course none can be suggested. But why is the killing 

 of a gravid female more specifically injurious than the killing of another 

 female"? I cannot myself perceive the difference. The two year-old 

 female of to-day is not gravid, but, if she is killed, the possibility of the 

 existence of a gravid female is prevented. You only postpone the 

 destruction by the period of a year. The absolute amount of the injury 

 is almost the same, not exact^ the same, but it is the same in tmture, 

 and almost the wsame in amount. 



Now that we see what these regulations are, how are they to be 

 described"? What the Treaty requires is regulations necessary for the 

 preservation of the fur-seal. Are //if -se regulations for the preservation 

 of the fur-seal? No; they are regulations designed to secure the more 

 speedy destruction of that race. Their chief feature is to permit pelagic 

 sealing, and to increase, and iDrodigiously increase, the stimulus which 

 is offered for tlie ])iirsuit. They are regulations, not for the i)rotection 

 and preservation of the fur-seal, but for its destruction — and for its 

 destruction in the most inhuman and shocking form. And they come 

 in the shape, as it were, of an mritation on the part of Great Britain to 

 the United States to engage with her in this work of destruction ! She 

 asks them to abolish this mode of capture at present i)ursued upon the 

 islands, or to diminish it, to cut it down; to forego in great part that 

 mode of taking the seals which is consistent with the preservation of the 

 herd, and which is agreeable, as far as the killing of animals can be made 



