OKAL ARGUMENT OF FREDERICK R. COUDERT, ESQ. 379 



That is, the wliole of Behring sea, aucl parts of the North Pacific 

 Ocean 



such an agreement to be signed simultaneously with the convention for arbitration, 

 and to be without prejudice to the questions to be submitted to the arbitrators. 



Take this in connection with the treaty itself which provides for the 

 protection to be given to the seals that resort to the islands. All you 

 have to find out is what seals resort to the Pribilof Isla7ids and those 

 seals are entitled to permanent protection. It seems to me that there 

 cannot be any question about that. 



The President. — I think it was not quite ont of our subject, Mr. 

 Coudert. 



Mr. Coudert. — ISTot out; but I think it was directly germane, and I 

 am much obliged to the learned President for making the suggestion. 



Now to return to the subject which was immediately under consider- 

 ation, and as I think we all agree one of capital importance — the sub- 

 ject of pelagic sealing. I will read rapidly what is stated in the Case. 

 I prefer to read it because I could not possibly state it more briefly and 

 clearly than it is stated in the Case pre])ared by General Foster. I read, 

 I will say to my friends on the other side, from the Case of the United 

 States, page 187. It is an interesting and succinct history of this 

 so-called industry: 



Open-sea sealing, the sole cause of the enormous decrease noted in the Alaskan 

 seal herd in the last few years, and which tlfrcateus its extermination in the near 

 future, was carried on by the Pacific coast natives in their canoes for many years 

 previous to the introduction of sealing schooners. The catch was small, ranging 

 from three to eight thousand annually, and there was little or no waste of life from 

 the loss of seals killed and not secured, as will be seen when the means and manner 

 of hunting employed by the Indians is considered. 



Even after vessels were employed in the industry, which according to Mr. Morris 

 Moss, vice-president of the Sealers' Association of Victoria, British Columbia, was 

 about the year 1872, the fleet was small, not numbering over half a dozen vessels. 

 Indians only were emj)loyed as hunters, and the seals were killed with spears. With 

 the introduction of schooners to carry the canoes out into the ocean, the sealing- 

 grounds were extended from the area covered by a canoe trip of twenty miles from a 

 given point on the coast to the waters frequented by the migrating herd from the 

 Columbia River to Kadiak Island. In 1884 the schooner Sint Diego entered Behring 

 Sea and returned to Victoria with upwards of two thousand skins. 



This was the initial jioint of piratical and destructive sealing. 



Sir Charles Russell. — The "San Diego" was an American ship, I 

 think. 



Mr. Coudert. — Possibly. 



General Foster. — And she was condemned by our courts. 



Mr. Coudert. — If they were American ships we would not resort to 

 arbitration to take care of our seals. I proceed : 



This gave impetus to the trade 



Then it was that the Canadians came in 



and new vessels embarked in the enterprise. 



About 188.5 a new method of hunting was introduced, which has been the great 

 cause of making pelagic seal hunting so destructive and wasteful of life — the use of 

 firearms. White men now became the principal hunters, and where previously the 

 number of skilled and available sealers had necessarily been limited to a lew hun- 

 dred coast natives, the possibility of large rewards for their labors induced many 

 whites to enter the service of those engaged in the business of seal destruction. 

 From that time forward the sealing fleet rapidly increased in number, until it now 

 threatens the total extinction of the northern fur seal. 



I would refer at this point to the list of sailing vessels. It is opposite 

 page 591 of Appendix No. 1 of our Case, and I will ask the Court to 

 look at it because it gives not only the names and accurate information 

 in detail, but if you examine it, it is a sort of chart which shows where 



