24 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



in common with the male. The slaughter of the female seal 

 is reckoned as an immediate loss of three seals, besides the 

 future loss of the whole number which the bearing seal may 

 produce in the successive years of life. The destruction 

 which results from killing seals in the open sea proceeds, 

 therefore, by a ratio which constantly and rapidly increases, 

 and insures the total extermination of the species within a 

 very brief period. It has thus become known that the only 

 proper time for the slaughter of seals is at the season when 

 they betake themselves to the land, because the land is the 

 only place where the necessary discrimination can be made 

 as to the age and sex of the seal. It would seem, then, by 

 fair reasoning, that nations not possessing the territory upon 

 which seals can increase their numbers by natural growth, 

 and thus afford an annual supply of skins for the use of man- 

 kind, should refrain from the slaughter in open sea, where 

 the destruction of the species is sure and swift." 



"The entire business," he continued, "was then (before 

 1889) conducted peacefully, lawfully, and profitably profita- 

 bly to the United States, for the rental was yielding a moder- 

 ate interest on the large sum which, this government had 

 paid for Alaska, including the rights now at issue ; profitably 

 to the Alaskan Company, which, under governmental direc- 

 tion and restriction, had given unwearied pains to the care 

 and development of the fisheries ; profitably to the Aleuts, 

 who were receiving a fair pecuniary reward for their labors, 

 and were elevated from semi-savagery to civilization and to 

 the enjoyment of schools and churches provided for their 

 benefit by the government of the United States ; and, last of 

 all, profitably to a large body of English laborers who had 

 constant employment and received good wages." Led on by 

 the impetus of his own reasoning, he attempted to set up a 

 prescriptive right acquired by Russia through the acquiescence 

 of all nations in her large claim of jurisdiction over Bering 

 Sea. He asked, "Whence did the ships of Canada derive the 

 right to do in 1886 that which they had refrained from doing 

 for more than ninety years ? Upon what grounds did Her 

 Majesty's Government defend in the year 1886 a course of 



