REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. .129 



475. We have been careful to colle(;t and collate all the iufonnation 

 possible on the arowtli of tbe industry on the Asiatic coasts of the 

 Pacific, because it lias for the most part been left untouched by those 

 who have written on the subject. Clark* simply dismisses the subjec t 

 Avitli the brief remark: "The seals taken by the Japanese are those 

 migratinji;' froui the Commander group, the number taken averaging 

 4,000 annually, though some years as many as 11,000 are taken." 

 Messrs. Lampson t merely report: "The supply fi om this source (Japan) 

 has varied very much of late years, amounting sometimes to 15,000 

 skins a-year, at others only 5,000, Last year (1887) stringent proliib- 

 itory laws were passed by the Japanese Government, and very few 

 skins have come forward." Very little else has been published on the 

 subject by any one of authority. But in addition to the results of much 

 correspondence, ofticial and ])rivate, and gathering together of scattered 

 references, we have had the advantage of making the aciinaintance of 

 men ex])erienced in seal-hunting and in seal localities in this portion of 

 the Pacific, and have thus been enabled to put together a sufficient 

 body of information to convey sufficient accounts of the rise and prgg- 

 ress of the sealing industry in these waters. 



47G. Among the points of special interest to our present purpose 

 are: — the growth of the industry 5 the similarity of conditions prevail- 

 ing on this side of the Pacific; the dissimilar circumstance of the 

 absence of j^elagic sealing; the very destructive effect of raids upon 

 breeding rookeries; and the attemi^ts at regulation and control by both 

 the Japanese and Eussian Governments. 



477. After the middle of the eighteenth century, British vessels, espe- 

 cially under the auspices of the East India Company, extended their 

 voyages from Bombay and Calcutta or Macao to the coast of Kam- 

 schatka, and along the Aleutian Islands into Behring Sea, and as far 

 as the north-west coast of America, in search of furs. Such voyages 

 were made in 1780 and in 1786-87. These English traders at once 

 encountered tlie claims of the Russians and the Si)aniards to the sole 

 right to navigate and trade in those seas, a claim then successfully con- 

 tested and tacitly or explicitly ignored about 100 years before the ofilcials 

 of a territory belonging to the United States seized British vessels for 

 engaging in similar enterprises in those waters. 



478. The furs thus obtained by the British were taken to the Chinese 

 market. The Russians were quick to notice this, and in due course 

 obtained from the Chinese authorities an interdict against the landing 

 in China of any furs from the islands and shores of the Eastern Pacific. 

 In the event this proved but a partial restriction so far as the English 

 were concerned, for they commenced at once to turn their attention to 

 bringing to the Canton market the fur-seal of the southern seas, and 

 this highly profitable trade thus started flourished from about the year 

 1703 until 1835. 



479. Meanwhile, however, in the Northern Pacific the Russians were 

 active. In 1799 a charter was granted by the Czar to the Russian-Amer- 

 ican Comi)any, giving them control over all the coasts of America on 

 the Pacific; north of latitude 55° north, and tins Com])any, extending its 

 operations under Baranoff' and other leaders, acquired a wide dominion. 

 In the course of a few years, English and American vessels established 

 almost a m(moi)oly in the supply of goods of all sorts to the Russians and 

 their natives, the return trade being mostly in furs for the Canton 



* Parliaineutavy Paper [C. 6131], p. 178. 



t House of Representatives, 50th Congress, 2ud Session, Report No. 3883, p. 114. 



B S, PT VI 9 



