CONCERNING FUR SEALS 127 



nically and legally, I suppose, that contention has its rights. The 

 case will be decided by the courts soon; but the points interesting 

 to the fur trade are these : 



Sealing under the treaty is operated by the United States Gov- 

 ernment. You could not have these seal skins in any case. The 

 United States is the greatest buyer of manufactured seal skins in 

 the world. In the War, you had not the man-power to go on with 

 your great dye works. We had. Why should we have let our U. 

 S. Government-owned seals rot unused in warehouses, for lack of 

 dyeing processes, which you could not use — especially as by treaty 

 we pay you a royalty on all skins taken to make up your loss in pel- 

 agic sealing ? Why should we ship raw skins to you to be sold at 

 slaughter prices, when you could not dye, only to buy them back 

 manufactured at excess prices ? When seal life was prolific, seal 

 coats sold in Hudson's Bay store in Winnipeg at retail prices of #200 

 to #300. Under the destruction of pelagic sealing, seal coats went 

 up to #1000 for poor, $1800 for medium, $2000 for good. If we can 

 increase seal life to a plentiful supply, coats will again sell at $200 

 to $300. We are thinking of satisfying the demands of the trade. 

 Under your method of procedure, you were totally destroying the 

 trade, as the trade in Sea Otter has been totally destroyed. 



One more point, when the argument is at its bitterest, keep in 

 mind it was not the American fur trader forced action in the treaty. 

 The trades stood back from the dispute. The influence that forced 

 action was the lover of wild life — the Camp Fire Club of New York, 

 which by a volunteer unpaid campaign of publicity aroused public 

 opinion all over the world to the danger of exterminating all Alaska 

 seal life. No American fur company had anything to do with 

 that campaign of publicity and aroused public opinion ; for the 

 leases of the American company for the Fur Seal Islands had expired. 

 They were no longer making enough to pay expenses ; and the 

 United States Government was spending millions on patrol boats 

 that could not prevent killing outside the legal zone. More seal 

 pups were dying every year of starvation from the killing of the 



