366 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



firearms sealed up before entering Bering Sea, to avoid interruption 

 and seizure for trivial and doubtful causes. 

 I have the honor, etc., 



S. WIRE, Acting Secretary. 

 The SECRETARY OF STATE. 



DEPARTMENT OF STATE, 



Washington, April 29, 1896. 



SIR : I beg to inclose herewith copy of note just received from the 

 British ambassador at this capital ; also copy of note I have sent to him 

 in reply. 



In reply to the inquiry addressed to me by the Treasury Department 

 in a communication of a day or two since, viz, whether in my judgment 

 there was any prospect of the British Government agreeing to any 

 modification of the Bering Sea regulations for the coming season, I 

 desire to say that, in my judgment, it is quite improbable that any such 

 agreement will be made. 



On the other hand, I have good reason for believing that if the report 

 of the British and Canadian agents proposed to be sent to the Pribilof 

 Islands, as above stated, should confirm the position of this Govern- 

 ment as to the threatened immediate extermination of the fur-seal herd, 

 a modus vivendi might be entered into which would insure the protec- 

 tion of the fur-seal herd during the coming season. 

 Eespectfully, yours, 



EICHARD OLNEY. 

 Hon. CHARLES S. HAMLIN, 



Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. 



[Inclosurea.] 



BRITISH EMBASSY, 

 Washington, April 27, 1896. 



SIR : With reference to your note No. 344 of the llth ultimo, in which you urge the 

 adoption of some further restrictions on yjelagic sealing in Bering Sea for the coming 

 season in view of the alleged imminent extermination of the fur-seal herd, I have 

 the honor to inform you that the contents of your note have received the careful 

 consideration of Her Majesty's Government. 



I am instructed by Her Majesty's principal secretary of state for foreign affairs to 

 state that the apprehensions of the United States Government on this head appear 

 to be founded mainly on the fact that by actual count 28,000 dead pups were found 

 in the island last year, and on the assumption that the deaths of these pups were the 

 direct result of their mothers having been killed at sea. 



But, from the exhaustive discussion of the question in the report and supplemen- 

 tary report of the British Bering Sea commissioners, it has not been satisfactorily 

 established that the mortality of the pups is caused by the killing of seals at sea. 

 The date, moreover, which the arbitrators fixed for the opening of Bering Sea pelagic 

 sealing and the radius within which sealing was prohibited round the Pribilof 

 Islands were determined, after full consideration, to be sufficient to protect nursing 

 females whose pups were not able to provide for themselves. 



It should also be borne in mind that in the Bering Sea catch of 1895 the proportion 

 of males to females taken by Canadian sealers was about 45 per cent of males against 

 55 per cent of females, although the returns of the American sealers in that sea give 

 an average of 3 females to 1 male. 



In the meantime the admitted fact that the seals at sea show no apparent diminu- 

 tion of numbers, and that the sealers in Bering Sea were able to make practically 

 as large catches last year as in the previous year, does not point to the imminent 

 extermination of the seals. 



