370 ORAL ARGUMENT OP FREDERICK R. COUDERT, ESQ. 



sealing was comparatively uuimportaut. But a few vessels up to this time had made 

 predatoiy excursions in Behring Sea, and the number of seals obtained by them is 

 known to have been small. 



[The Tribunal tbeu adjourned for a short time.] 



Mr. OouDERT. — As I was saying to the Court at the hour of adjourn- 

 ment, the question of management on the Islands in one aspect of the 

 case is important, and the question of increase or decrease is one that 

 deserves consideration; our proposition is that the period from about 

 188U to 1884 or 1885 was one of stagnation. From 1S70 to 1880 it was 

 one of increase. Of course it is not absolutely and mathematically 

 possible to say when increase ceased and stagnation commenced and 

 decrease took its place, but speaking generally and with such informa- 

 tion as we can get from persons best able to express an opinion, that is 

 the estimate that we submit to the Court. — Increase to 1880: stagna- 

 tion from 1880 to about 1884: and subsequently to that, the decrease 

 which it is conceded on all sides exists and now threatens extermina- 

 tion. After this latter date of 1884 or 1885, there was a perceptible 

 decrease in the herd as a whole, although no difficulty was at that time 

 experienced in getting the full quota of 100,000 young males, but when 

 1887 was reached or 1888 then the difficulty was first experienced. It 

 is almost unnecessary to say that those on the islands would first notice 

 the decrease in that particulai- class of animals in which they were 

 most specially interested, over which they had control, from which they 

 took their supjilies and with which they had the most to do. This is 

 the statement in the case of the United States at page 105: 



From the year 1880 to the year 1884-1885 the condition of the rookeries showed 

 neither increase nor decrease in the number of seals on the islands. In 1884 however, 

 there was a perceptible decrease noticed in the seal licrd at the islands and in 1885 

 the decrease was marked in the migrating herd as it passed up along the American 

 coast, both by the Indian hunters along the coast and by white seal hunters at sea. 

 Since that time the decrease has become more evident from year to year, both at the 

 rookeries and in the waters of the Pacific and Behring Sea. The Behring Sea Com- 

 missioners of both Great Britain and the United States in their joint report, afJfirm 

 that a decrease has taken place in the number of the seal herd so that the simple 

 fact is accepted by both parties to this controversy. But the time when the seals 

 commenced decreasing, the extent of such decrease, and its cause are matters for 

 consideration. 



This cause in one sense is also admitted by the joint report, and that 

 is that the decrease is due to the interference of man — to the killing 

 by man. 



If we were to stop here, having shewn the court that so far back as 

 1876 pelagic sealuig had commenced and was more or less nuirderous, 

 only a few thousand it is true originally, but gradually growing up till 

 12,000 or 13,000 were reached, — about 1880 or 1870 it began to average 

 some 12,000, — if we have shewn tiiat up to that time the rookeries were 

 prosperous and increasing, and suddenly came a tap, a drain, upon our 

 resources in the form of i>elagic sealing, and that many thousands were 

 killed, and under such circumstances that the killing was peculiarly 

 fatal to the integrity and increase of the flock, we would naturally 

 think that we have no more to shew, the burden is upon the other side. 

 If I have a flock of sheep, and I can prove t])at lor a number of years 

 raiders have been at work, and they have carried off my ewes and 

 lambs in large numbers, I am not called upon to shew that the animals 

 died of murrain or sunstroke: that I may well leave to my adversary 

 to establish if he may. The natural and obvious conclusion from the 

 fact of this large pelagic sealing, — for in its cumulative efiects it was 

 large — is to shew why the flock decreased. But we are not left only to 

 this obvious and natural and necessary inference. We have the proof 



