THE FUR-SEALS AND THE BERING SEA AWARD 45 



waters covered by the award " having on board apparatus or 

 implements suitable for taking seals, but forbidden then and 

 there to be used (fire-arms), it shall be presumed that the . . . 

 apparatus or implements . . . were used in violation of this 

 act until it is otherwise sufficiently proved." Thus the burden 

 of proof was placed upon all masters of American sealing 

 craft, when arms were forbidden, to show when found in their 

 possession, that the same had not been used for the purpose 

 of killing seals. When enacting laws for the enforcement 

 of a Russian vivendi in 1891, the British Government had 

 deemed it proper to adopt this rule of evidence, l but in 

 1894, in the Orders in Council carrying into effect the Paris 

 award as to British subjects, this important provision was 

 omitted. In the absence of such equivalent legislation on 

 the part of Great Britian, the American sealing captains 

 were placed upon an unequal footing with their Canadian 

 brethren, and manifestly at a great disadvantage when 

 brought before the court charged with violation of the law 

 forbidding the use of fire-arms in the capture of seals. In 

 his letter of May 10, 1895, to Sir Julian Pauncefote, Mr. 

 Uhl, then Acting Secretary of State, said in reference to this 

 question of evidence : 



" . . . Experience has shown it to be almost a practical 

 impossibility to detect a sealing vessel in the act of using 

 firearms for this one prohibited purpose. Although the search- 

 ing officer may be morally certain that firearms have been 

 used, and may properly consider the mere presence of fire- 

 arms on the vessel, if accompanied with bodies of seals, seal- 

 skins, or other suspicious evidence, sufficient justification 

 (even apart from the provisions of Section 10 of the Act of 

 Congress of April 6, 1894, which is applicable only to Amer- 

 ican vessels) for the seizure of such a vessel, it must be 

 apparent that in proceedings for condemnation brought in a 

 court thousands of miles away from the place of seizure it 



1 u If a British ship is found within Bering Sea having on board thereof fish- 

 ing or shooting implements or sealskins, or bodies of seals, it shall lie on the 

 owner or master of such ship to prove that the ship was not used or employed 

 in contravention of this Act." (June 15, 1891, 53 and 54 Victoria, Chapter 19.) 



