PROPOSED INTERNATIONAL MEASURES, 1890. 219 



(k'livcvod of their young', should be grauted, tlie Bchring Sea would 

 swarm with vesselsViigaged in sealing — not forty or fifty, as now, but 

 many hundreds, tlirough the suninuir months. If that privilege should 

 be given to Canadian vessels, it must of' course, be conceded at once 

 to American vessels. If the rookeries are to be tlirowu open to Cana- 

 dians, they would certainly, as matter of common right, be thrown open 

 to citizens of the Uiiited States. The seal mothers, which require an 

 area of from 40 to 50 miles from the islands, on all sides, to secure food 

 for their young, would be slauglitered by hundreds of thousands, and 

 in a brief space of time there would be no seals in the Bchring Sea. Sim- 

 ilar causes have uniformly produced similar effects. Seal rookeries in 

 all parts of the world have been destroyed in that way. The present 

 course of Great Britain will produce the same effect on the only seal 

 rookery of any value left in tlie waters of the oceans and seas of the 

 globe. The United States have leased the privilege of sealing because 

 only in that way caii the rookeries be j)reserved, and only in that way 

 can this Government derive a revenue from tlie Pribilof Islands. (Treat 

 Britain would jierhaps gain something for a few years, but it would be 

 at the expense of destroying a valuable interest belonging- to a friendly 

 nation — an interest whicli the civilized world desires to have preserved. 



I observe that you quote Treasury Agent George E. Tingle in your 

 dispatch of April 30 as showing that, notwithstanding- the de])redations 

 of marauders, the total number of seals had increased in the Bering- 

 Sea. The rude mode of estinmting the total number can readily lead 

 to mistakes, and other agents have differed from Mr. Tingle. But 

 aside from the correctness or incorrectness of Mr. Tingle's conclusions 

 on tliat point, may I ask upon what grounds do the Canadian vessels 

 assert a claim, unless they assume that they have a title to the increase 

 of the seal herd? If the claim of the United States to the seals of the 

 Pribilof Islands be well founded, we are certainly entitled to the in- 

 crease as much as a sheep-grower is entitled to the increase of his flock. 



Having introduced Mr. Tingle, who has very extensive knowledge 

 touching the seals in Bchring Sea, as well as the habits of the Canadian 

 marauders, I trust you will not discredit his testimony. The following" 

 statement made by Mr. Tingle in his official report to the Treasury De- 

 partment at the close of the. season of 1887 is respectfully commended 

 to your consideration. 



I am now convinced from wlint I gather in qnestioning tlic men belonoino- to cap- 

 tnred schoonc^rs and from readins; the logs of the vessels, tlilit not more than one seal 

 in ten killed and mortally wounded is landed on the hoats and skinned; thns yon 

 will see the wanton destruetiou of seal life withont any hejiellt wliatever. I think 

 HO, 000 skins taken this yi'ar is a low estimate ou this hasis; 300,0(X) far seals were 

 killed to seenrc that nnmlx^r, or three times as many asthe Alaskai Commercial Com- 

 pany are allowed hy law to kill. You can readily see that this great slaughter of seals 

 will in a few years make it im])0ssil)le for 100,000 skins to be taken on the islands by 

 tiie lessees. I earnestly ho]ie more rigorous measures will be adopt^ed by the Govern- 

 ment in dealing with these destructive law-breakers. 



Both of Mr. Tingle's statements are made in his ofticial capacity, and 

 in both cases he had no temjjtation to state anything excei)t what he 

 honestly believed to be the truth. 



Tlie President does not conceal his disappointment that even for the 

 sake f>f securing an impartial arbitration of the question at issue, Her 

 Majesty's Government is not willing to suspend, for a single season, the 

 ])ractice which Lord Salisbury described in 1888 as ''the wanton de- 

 struction of a valuable industry," and which this Government has uni- 

 formly regarded as an unprovoked invasion of its established rights. 

 I have, etc., 



Jamjes G. Blaine. 



