ORAL ARGUMENT OF FREDERICK R. COUDERT, ESQ. 313 



ment. It would be profitable to us to continue tbat industry. It would 

 be profitable to the world if we should be allowed to continue it. All 

 we can say is, it is either this monopoly or destruction. 



Bnt while this is true, as to Russia and the United States, Canada would lose the 

 employment of a lucrative ri.olit long possessed, and this loss would be fatal to her 

 prosecution of the seal industry, and would be unrelieved by a single compensation. 



It is manifest from a perusal of Mr. Bayard's letter that the propositiou is to pre- 

 vent the killing of seals dariug the close time by any process whatever within the 

 area set apart, except, of course, upon the Pribyloff Islands. 



Forgetting that there is a close season on the Pribilof Islands from 

 the 1st of January to the 31st of December. The close season is intended 

 to prevent a certain thing, that is the killing of females; and it is not 

 allowed on one single day in the year to kill them on the Pribilof Islands. 

 Therefore, so far as this case is concerned, so tar as the evils to be rem- 

 edied are concerned, so far as the remedies to apply are concerned, we 

 may say that there is a close season the whole year round on Pribilof 

 Islands, and that is the fact that these gentlemen will not understand. 



Experienced sealers aver that by the present methods of hunting with gun and 

 spear not more than one in ten of the seals struck is lost, and it is not believed that 

 these methods are so destructive as Mr. Bayard alleges. 



That is, they wound ten per cent and lose them. We will undertake 

 to show that the loss is enormously more than that, that it is a most 

 severe drain upon the herds, without benefit to anybody; that the ani- 

 mals are wounded and lost constantly, 25 and 30 per cent: but I am 

 anticipating. 



The method of taking seals by meaus of the net is not a destructive method, and 

 yet it 13 proposed to prohibit this as well. 



I am glad to have a Minister say that the use of the net is not a 

 destructive method. That is one of the few methods that are prohib- 

 ited by the British Connuissioners, and probably for the reason that it 

 is not destructive. The only methods that they allow are the most 

 destructive, as the court will see. 



It appears, therefore, that what Mr. Bayard intends is to entirely prevent the kill- 

 ing of seals within the area proposed by any methods or by any person except by 

 the methods employed upon the Pribilof Islauds and by the citizens of the United 

 States, who may, for the time being, enjoy the mono]ioly of taking seals thereon. 

 Against this unjust and unnecessary interference with, or rather prohibition of, 

 rights so long enjoyed to a lawful and remunerative occupation upon the high seas, 

 the Undersigned begs to enter his most earnest protest. 



And this was effective, a most effective protest in its results. 



The President. — Mr, Ooudert, I would like to ask you whether we 

 are to hear an explanation from your side as to this taking of the seals 

 by nets. Will you come to that? Is it a point of your argument? 

 We have not heard yet about it, but we wish to hear about it. 



Mr. CouDERT. — I would like to answer almost any other question of 

 fact that the President of the Tribunal might put to me; but really I 

 never saw anything about taking seals by nets that was worth consid- 

 ering, except that the British Commissioners say, "You ought not to 

 take by nets". 



This gentleman says it is not destructive. I do not understand that 

 anybody denies that. I understand there is an intimation in some affi- 

 davit that at one time or another they were used in the Aleutian Islands 

 or in the straits. 



The President. — Will the British Government's side offer us any 

 explanation as to the sealing with nets? 



Sir Charles Russell. — Yes, in due course. 



