418 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
the Secretary of the Treasury is required to lease to proper and responsible parties, 
for the best advantage of the United States, having due regard for the interests of 
the Government, the native inhabitants, their comfort, maintenance, and education, 
the right of taking fur-seals on the islands named, and of sending vessels thereto 
for the skins so taken, for the term of twenty years, at an annual rental of not less 
than 50,000 dollars, and a revenue tax of 2 dollars upon each fur seal-skin taken dur- 
ing the continuance of the lease. These provisions impose a large measure of respon- 
sibility upon the Secretary, and the official record of legislative proceedings in the 
last preceding session of Congress indicates that it is the will of that body that such 
discretion should remain as originally provided in the Statute. 
The present lessees of the seal islands pay an annual rental of 55,000 dollars and a 
combined revenue tax and royalty of 2 dol. 62} c. per skin, and an experience of 
twenty years has shown the capability of the leasing system, when faithfully admin- 
istered, to respond to the various public interests concerned. , 
382 The Pribyloy Islands are now the only important sources of supply for mer- 
chantable seal-skins. The herd which makes those islands its home is vari- 
ously estimated to number from 4,000,000 to 6,000,000 seals, but the Treasury agents 
on duty at the islands have begun to note an apparent decrease in the number of seals 
resorting to the islands in the breeding season. It is much to be desired that any 
such decrease is but temporary, for should the Pribylov herd disappear, there is 
none to replace it. It is estimated that upwards of 300,000 seals were killed by 
unauthorized sealing-vessels during the breeding seasons of 1888 and 1889, and as the 
great majority of these were cows, there was an almost equal loss of pupseals. It is 
obvious that the herd must soon disappear under such a decimation of its produc- 
tive members, even if the habitual use of fire-arms did not tend to drive the seals 
away from their haunts in advance of their extermination. 
The Act of the 2nd March, 1889, confers all the needed authority upon the Exec- 
utive to protect the seals within the waters of the United States, butanappropriation 
is necessary to provide effective means for exercising that authority. There are not 
enough Revenue-cutters at the disposal of the Department to properly police the 
sealing-grounds during the dense fogs that prevail throughout the breeding season, 
and the great number of petty vessels engaged in marauding would render it impos- 
sible for their captors to furnish prize crews to take them all to Sitka for condemna- 
tion. The present state and prospects of the industry seem to call for prompt and 
energetic measures to preserve the valuable Pribylov herd from destruction or dis- 
persion. It is suggested that a sufficient force of cruizing-vessels should be char- 
tered, equipped, and manned, as auxiliary to such Revenue-vessels as could be spared 
from stations, and a dep6t for prisoners established at Ounalaska, whence they could 
be transferred to Sitka, and dealt with according to law. It is believed that two or 
three seasons of energetic effort would break up the present destructive and threat- 
ening operations. 
No. 266. 
Sir J. Pauncefote to the Marquis of Salisbury.—( Received December 27.) 
(Telegraphic. ] 
WASHINGTON, December 26, 1889. 
Seizuresin Behring’s Sea. 
Secretary of State has been at New York during past week. I 
renewed discussion as to compensation this morning. He stated that 
he had decided to reply to the protest of Her Majesty’s Government of 
October last, in order to place on record before the world the precise 
grounds on which his Government justify the seizures of our vessels, 
so that any compensation given may not be construed as an admission 
of wrong. He begged me to assure your Lordship that his reply would 
be sent in a few days, would not in any way embarrass the negotiations, 
and I will telegraph substance to your Lordship, and suspend further 
action pending its receipt. 
