7198 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
[Inclosure 3 in No. 56.] 
Sir J. Pauncefote to Mr. Wharton. 
WASHINGTON, June 10, 1891, 
Srr: I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 9th June, 
delivered this day, in reply to my note of the 8th, in which I t1 ‘ansmitted, for the 
consideration of your Government, the draft of the proposed Agreement for a modus 
vivendi during the present fur-seal fishery season in Behring’s Sea, with certain modi- 
fications and l additions suggested therein by the Marquis of Salisbury i 
Ihave telegraphed the ‘substance of your note under reply to his Lordship, and I 
hope to be able to communicate to you his observations thereon in the course 
34 of to-morrow or the following day. In the meanwhile, with reference to the 
complaint that new conditions should have been suggested at this stage by 
Lord Salisbury. I would beg leave to point oat that all his ‘Lordship’ 8 suggestions 
are obviously dictated by a “desire to render the modus virendi more effective, and to 
do all that is possible in the common interest for the protection and preservation of 
the seal species during the present season. In my humble opinion, therefore, it is to 
be regretted that those suggestions should not have commended themselves to the 
favourable consideration of the President. Thus, the object of the proposed inser- 
tion in Article 2 of the words, ‘‘food skins, and not for tax and shipment,” which 
you qualify as extraordinary, was not to prevent the export and sale of the 7,500 food 
skins, of which the proceeds were intended to cover the cost of food, clothing, fuel, 
and other necessaries for the natives. Its sole object was to stop the injurious prac- 
tice of driving and redriving the herds to the killing grounds for selection, which is 
resorted to in the case of seals killed for “tax and shipment,” and is stated by 
experts to be the main cause of the depletion of male seal life on the islands. 
I would refer you on this point to the Report of Special Treasury Agent Ch. J. 
Goff, laid before Congress (Ex. Doc. 49), pp. 2 and 29. Also to the Report of Assistant 
Treasury Agent Joseph Murray, at p.8, and that of Assistant Treasury Agent A. W. 
Lavender, at p.9 of the same Congressional Paper. 
As regards Lord Salisbury’s proposal of the Joint Commission, it is by no means a 
new one. It has long been called for by public opinion in both countries. It was 
inserted among Lord Salisbur y’s last proposals for the Arbitration Agreement, in the 
expectation that the latter document would be s signed contemporancously with the 
Agreement for a modus vivendi; but, as your Government is not prepared to bring 
the arbitration negotiation to a conclusion without further consideration, and as it is 
of the highest importance that the Joint Commission should be appointed at once, 
in order to enter upon its functions during the present fishery season, Lord Salis- 
bury has had no alternative but to urge the insertion of the Article providing for a 
Joint Commission in the Agreement for the modus vivendi, of which it should, in the 
opinion of Her Majesty’s Gov ernment, be a component part. The objection of the 
President to that Article in the modus virendi appears to me to create the greatest 
difficulty which has yet presented itself in the course of this negotiation, and I earn- 
estly hope that if Lord Salisbury should be disposed to waive the other conditions 
to which exception is taken in your note, the President will on his part accede to his 
Lordship’s wishes in respect of the Joint Commission. 
IT have, &e. 
(Signed) JULIAN PAUNCEFOTE. 
[Inclosure 4 in No. 56.] 
Sir J. Pauncefote to Mr. Wharton. 
WASHINGTON, June 17, 1891. 
Srr: With reference to my note of yesterday, and especially to the concluding 
part of it, I have the honour to inform you that I have this day received by tele- 
graph from the Marquis of Salisbury a reply to the proposal for a modus vivendi dur- 
ing the present fur-seal fishery season in Behring’s Sea contained in your note of the 
9th June. 
His Lordship states that the President’s refusal to adopt his suggestion with 
respect to Russia renders the proposed modus vivendi much less valuable, and that he 
is reluctant to abandon the words which he had proposed for insertion in Article 2 
in relation to the reservation of the 7,500 seals to be killed on the islands. 
Nevertheless, in view of the urgency of the case, his Lordship is disposed to author- 
ize me to sign the Agreement in the precise terms formulated in your note of the 9th 
June, provided the question of a Joint Commission be not left in doubt, and that your 
