al 
at 
APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 499 
On these statements Mr. Allen himself remarks: 
“These observations, aside from the judicious suggestions made by Mr. Swan, are 
of special interest as confirming those made some years ago by Captain Bryant, and 
already briefly recorded in this work. They seem to show that at least a certain 
number of fur-seals repair to secluded places, suited to their needs, as far south as 
the latitude of Cape Flattery, to bring forth their young.” (Allen, op. cit., pp. 411, 
772, 773. ) 
Mr. Elliott, of course, stoutly denies the authenticity of all these observations, it 
being necessary to do so in order to maintain his contention as to the ownership of 
the United States Government, or the Alaska Fur Company, as the case may be, in 
the seals. 
It has further been often stated that the killing of fur-seals in the open sea off the 
North Pacific coast is a comparatively new departure, while it is, as a matter of 
fact, morally certain that the Indians of the whole length of that coast have pur- 
sued and killed these animals from time immemorial. As the value of theskins has, 
however, only of late years become fully known and appreciated, it is naturally 
difficult to obtain much trustworthy evidence of this without considerable research. 
Some facts can, however, be adduced. Thus, Captain Shannon described the mode 
of hunting seals in canoes employed by the Indians of Vancouver Island, and refers 
to the capture of seals by the Indians off the Straits of Fuca, where, he adds, they 
appear— 
“Some years as early as the Ist March, and more or less remain till July or 
August, but they are most plentiful in April and May. During these two months the 
Indians devote nearly all their time to sealing when the weather will permit.” 
452 In 1848 to 1864 only a few dozen skins are known to have been taken annually, 
but in 1869 fully 5,000 were obtained. Mr. Allen, writing in 1880, states that— 
“During the winter months considerable numbers of sealskins are taken by the 
natives of British Columbia, some years as many as 2,000.” (Allen, op. cit., pp. 332, 
871, 411.) 
The protection of the fur-seals from extermination has from time to time been 
speciously advanced as a sufficient reason for extraordinary departures from the 
respect usually paid to private property and to international rigbts; but any pro- 
tection based on the lease of the breeding-grounds of these animals as places of 
slanghter, and an attempt to preserve the seals when at large and spread over the 
ocean, as they are during the greater part of each year, is unfair in its operation, 
unsound in principle, and impracticable in enforcement. 
Referring to the interests of the Indians of the north-west coast, it is true that a 
certain number of Aleuts now on the Pribylov Islands (898 in all, according to 
Elliott) are dependent on the sealing business for subsistence, but these islands were 
uninhabited when discovered by the Russians, who brought these people here for 
their own convenience. Further south along the coast the natives of the Aleutian 
Islands, of the south-east coast of Alaska, and of the entire coast of British Colum- 
bia have been, and still are, accustomed annually to kill considerable numbers of 
seals. This it would be unjust to interfere with, even were it possible to carry ont 
any regulations with that effect. The further development of oceanic sealing affords 
employment to, and serves as a mode of advancement and civilization for, these 
Indians, and is one of the natural industries of the coast. No allusion need be made 
to the prescriptive rights of the white sealers, which are well known. 
The unsoundness of this principle of conservation is shown by what has occurred 
in the Southern Hemisphere in respect to the fur-seals of that region. About the 
beginning of the century very productive sealing-grounds existed in the Falkland 
Islands, Kerguelen Islands, Georgian Islands, the west coast of Patagonia, and many 
other places similarly situated, all of Which were in the course of a few years almost 
absolutely stripped of seals, and in many of which the animal is now practically 
extinct. This destruction of the southern fur-sealing trade was not caused by pro- 
miscuous sealing at sea, but entirely by hunting on and around the shores, and, had 
these islands been protected as breeding-places, the fur-seals would in all probability 
be nearly as abundant in the south to-day as they were at the date at which the 
trade commenced. 
The impracticability of preventing the killing of seals on the open sea, and of 
efficiently patrolling the North Pacitie for this purpose, is sufficiently obvious. The 
seals, moreover, when at sea (in marked contrast with their boldness and docility in 
their breeding-places) are extremely wary, and the number which can be obtained by 
legitimate hunting at sea must always be smallas compared with the total. Elliott, 
in fact, states that the seal, when at sea, ‘‘is the shyest aud wariest your ingenuity 
can define.” (Op. cit., p. 65.) 
The position is such that at the present time the perpetuation or the extermina- 
tion of the fur-seal in the North Pacific as a commercial factor practically depends 
entirely on the regulations and restrictions which may be applied by the United 
States to the Pribylov Islands, and now that this is understood a regard for the 
