APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 309 
The Minister appends herewith a paper upon the ‘‘Fur-seal Fisheries of the Pacific 
Coast and Alaska,” recently prepared and published in San Francisco, and designed 
to explain, more particularly to Eastern United States Senators and Congressmen, 
the value of the fur-seal fisheries, which contains much valuable imformation not 
adverse to the contention of the Canadian Government. 
The Committee, concurring in the foregoing Report of the Minister of Marine and 
Fisheries, recommend that your Excellency be moved to forward a copy of 
279 this Minute to the Right Honourable the Principal Secretary of State for the 
Colonies, for the information of the Foreign Office, and that a copy thereof be 
sent to the High Commissioner. 
All which is respectfully submitted for your Excellency’s approval. 
(Signed) JOHN J. MCGEE, 
Clerk, Privy Council. 
APPENDIX No. 1. 
Extract from the Report of the Governor of Alaska for the Fiscal Year 1S8¢ 
PROTECTION OF FUR-SEAIL AND SEA OTTER, PAGE 48. 
As these seizures have most probably raised an international question involving 
the right of the United States to exclusive jurisdiction over the waters of the 
Behring’s Sea north of the Aleutian Islands, and east of the 193rd meridian, west 
longitude, it may not be unbecoming in me to suggest that unless that right is 
insisted upon and maintained, an industry which now yields a revenne equal to a 
fair rate of interest on the amount paid for the whole of Alaska will not only be 
destroyed, but the means of livelihood will likewise be taken away from a large 
number of people whom the Government is bound by every consideration of honour 
and public policy to protect. I can conceive of no other plan by which the seal 
fisheries can be preserved than the one long ago adopted and now in vogue, whether 
they ought not now to be yielding avery large revenue to the Gover nment is a question 
to be discussed a year or two hence. It is - reasonably certain, however, that unless 
our Government asserts and maintains the jurisdiction ceded to it by Russia, the 
Seal Islands will in a very few years be robbed of all present or prospective value to 
any one. It is just as essential to the preservation of this industry that the seals be 
protected against indiscriminate slaughter while on their way to and from their 
breeding places, as that the number to be taken on the islands should be limited, 
and every necessary restriction imposed as to age, sex, and the mode of killing. 
+ * * * * * * 
Unless our right to such jurisdiction be waived or abandoned, seals once in Beh- 
ring’s Sea are as much the property of the United States as the islands themselves, 
and should be no less zealously guarded than are the Newfoundland cod banks by 
the Dominion of Canada. Unless so guarded chartered rights will not only be 
impaired, but a source of large and perpetual revenue to the Government utterly 
destroyed. 
APPENDIX No. 2. 
Extract from the Report of the Governor of Alaska for the Fiscal Year 1887. 
PROTECTION OF FUR-SEAL. 
In connection with these seizures, from which it seems to me no other inference 
ean be drawn than that our Government is determined to assert and maintain the 
right of exclusive jurisdiction over all that portion of Behring’s Sea ceded to it by 
Russia, I can only reiterate that part of my last Annual Report in which I essayed, 
rather feebly I fear, not only to show the necessity of such a policy to the preserva- 
tion of the sea-fur industry, but the wrong its abandonment would inflict upon the 
very considerable number of native people who wholly or in large part depend upen 
it for a livelihood, and whom, it appears to me, it is the duty of the Government to 
protect. 
In view of the fact that the seizure of these vessels and their forfeiture has raised 
an international question of grave importance, I have thought it proper to include 
with this Report a copy of the brief submitted by the Queen’ s Counsel in the case 
of the British schooners, together with the argument of the United States Attorney 
and the opinion of the Court. Honourable AK Delaney, Collector of Customs, 
