44 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



of the Treasury Carlisle, in answer to a House resolution, 

 said that from the statistics of the pelagic catch of 1894, "it 

 becomes evident that during the present season there has 

 been an unprecedented increase over preceding years in the 

 number of seals killed by pelagic sealers, both in American 

 and Asiatic waters. This increase has caused an alarming 

 decrease in the number of seals on the islands. . . . 

 The alarming increase in the number of seals killed by the 

 pelagic sealers . . . emphasizes the conclusion expressed 

 in my annual report to Congress that long before the 

 expiration of the five years, when the regulations enacted 

 by the tribunal of arbitration are to be submitted to the 

 respective governments for reexamination, the fur seal will 

 have been practically exterminated." Mr. Gresham, Secre- 

 tary of State, expressed to the British Ambassador his anxiety 

 concerning the future welfare of the seals in his letter of 

 January 23, 1895: " . . . It would appear that there were 

 landed in the United States and Victoria 121,143 skins, 

 (operation of season 1894), and that the total pelagic catch, 

 as shown by the London trade sales and careful estimates of 

 skins transshipped in Japanese and Russian ports, amounts 

 to about 142,000, a result unprecedented in the history of 

 pelagic sealing. . . . This startling increase in the pe- 

 lagic slaughter of both the American and Asiatic herds has 

 convinced the President, and it is respectfully submitted 

 cannot fail to convince Her Majesty's Government, that 

 the regulations enacted by the Paris Tribunal have not oper- 

 ated to protect the seal herd from that destruction which 

 they were designed to prevent, and that, unless a speedy 

 change in the regulation be brought about, extermination of 

 the herd must follow." 



Further cause for American dissatisfaction in the matter 

 was found in the alleged indifference manifested by the 

 English Government in assuming its full share of obliga- 

 tion in the enforcement of the regulations. In the Act of 

 Congress (April 5, 1894), enforcing the Paris award for 

 that season, a section had been introduced to the effect that 

 if any licensed sealing vessel should be found within the 



