MODUS VIVENDI OF 1892. 355 



Government would make their efforts most effective, the sealing in the 

 ITorth Pacifie Ocean should be forbidden." 



After pointing out "the great need of an effective modus," you state 

 that "holding an arbitration in regard to the rightful mode of taking 

 seals, while their destruction goes forward, would be as if, while an 

 arbitration to the title to timber land were in progress, one party should 

 remove all the trees." 



I have the honor to inform you that I have received a reply from Lord 

 Salisbury to the following effect: In the first place his lordship) states 

 that he can not in any degree admit that the delays have been greater 

 on the part of Great Britain than on the part of the United States. 



As regards the necessity for another modus vivendi, Her Majesty's 

 Government consented to that measure last year, solely on the ground 

 that it was supposed that there would be danger to the preservation of 

 the seal species in Behring Sea, unless some interval in the slaughter 

 of seals were prescribed both at sea and on laud. But Her Majesty's 

 Government have received no information to show that so drastic a 

 remedy is necessary for two consecutive seasons. On the contrary, the 

 British Commissioners on the Behring Sea Joint Commission have in- 

 formed Her Majesty's Government that, so far as pelagic sealing is con- 

 cerned, there is no danger of any serious diminution of the fur-seal 

 species, as a consequence of this year's hunting. 



Nevertheless, Lord Salisbury would not object, as a temporary meas- 

 ure of precaution for this season, to the prohibition of all killing at sea 

 within a zone extending to not more than 30 nautical miles around the 

 Pribilof Islands, such prohibition being conditional on the restriction 

 of the number of seals to be killed for any purpose on the islands to a 

 maximum of 30,000. Lord Salisbury, referring to the passage in your 

 note in which you compare the case to an arbitration about timber 

 land, from which the trees are being removed by one of the parties, ob- 

 serves that he hardly thinks the simile quite apposite. His lordship 

 suggests that the case is more like one of arbitration respecting the 

 title to a meadow. While the arbitration is going on, he adds, we cut 

 the grass; and quite rightly, for the grass will be reproduced next year, 

 and so will the seals. 

 I have, etc., 



Julian Pauncefote. 



Sir Julian Pauncefote to Mr. Blaine. 



British Legation, 



Washington, March 7, 1892. 



Sm: With reference to my note of the 29th ultimo, in which I had 

 the honor to inform you that the Marquis of Salisbury had received no 

 information to show the necessity for renewing, during the approach- 

 ing fishery season, the modus vivendi of last year in Behring Sea as pro- 

 posed in your note to me of the 24th ultimo, I think it opportune to 

 remind you ot the following fact in connection with that modus vivendi 

 which may have escaped your attention, as you were absent from Wash- 

 ington at the time of its negotiation. 



In the course of the correspondence which then took j)lace it was dis- 

 tinctly notified to your Government that the modus vivendi would not 

 be renewed for the following season. You will find that, at the close of 



