APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 893 
Firstly, that it is understood by Article 6 that the question of the 
necessity of any Regulations for the proper protection and the pres- 
ervation of fur-seals in, or habitually resorting to, the Behring’s Sea 
is left to the decision of the Arbitrators, as well as the nature of those 
Regulations, if the necessity, in their judgment, is proved to exist. 
Secondly, that the observance of the Regulations will not become 
obligatory on the United States and Great Britain until the other 
Maritime Powers also shall have accepted them. 
Great Britain and the United States would otherwise simply hand 
over to the nationals of other countries the right of exterminating the 
seals. 
No. 170. 
Sir J. Pauncefote to the Marquis of Salisbury.—(Received November 23.) 
(Extract. ] 
WASHINGTON, November 13, 1891. 
I have the honour to transmit herewith copies of a narrative by a 
correspondent of the ‘“* New York Herald” (published in that journal 
on the 8th instant) of his voyage to Behring’s Sea during the last seal 
fishery season, undertaken for the purpose of inquiring into the facts 
connected with that industry. 
A part of the narrative which is of special interest is that which 
appears at the close under the heading, ‘‘ How to save the Seal.” 
118 ‘ {Inclosure in No. 170.] 
Extracts from the ‘New York Herald” of November 8, 1891. 
Inuicir SEALING.—ITS RISE AND INCREASE IN THE LAsr TEN YEARS IN BrH- 
RING’S SuA.—There are two systems of seal hunting: one with Indian hunters, who 
get paid from 2 dollars to 4 dollars for every skin a canoe brings in, and the other 
with White hunters, who are paid a little less. The Indians hunt in canoes, two in 
each, and use the spear almost exclusively ; the White hunter has asteerer and a boat 
puller, and uses the gun, loaded with five drams of gunpowder and about twenty 
buckshot. It is the latter method that is so complained of by those who wish to 
prevent the extermination of the seal, as they say with truth a very large percentage 
are shot and either killed or mortally wounded, without being recovered. 
On the 2nd July we left Victoria, intending to make our first call at a Settlement 
of Indians called Clayoquot. Itseemed strange that, although the Queen’s Proclama- 
tion forbidding the killing of seals by British subjects had already been announced, 
no difficulty was made by the authorities in giving the captain of the ‘‘ Otto” his 
clearance for the Behring’s Sea. Neither was he ofticially informed of the Procilama- 
tion, notwithstanding the fact that Her Majesty’s steam-ships ‘‘ Pheasant” and 
“ Nymphe” had already sailed from Esquimalt to the sea to carry out the orders of 
the Queen’s Government. Before going into the history of the cruise of the “ Otto,” 
a short account of the rise and development of the seal-poaching industry will be 
necessary. Although the poachers, to give them the name accorded to them by the 
public generally, ave styled Canadian, a large number hail from San Francisco, 
Seattle, Portland, and Port Townsend, in the United States; and many of those sail- 
ing from Victoria and Vancouver, British Columbia, under the British flag, are partly 
owned by American citizens. 
The first schooner on record to enter the Behring’s Sea in pursuit of seals was the 
American-owned ‘ Santiago,” of San Francisco, in 1879. It was not until the fall of 
1883 that the ‘‘ Favourite,” with the present captain of the “Otto” on board, pio- 
neered the way for the Canadian sealers. In 184 there were only six schooners from 
San Francisco and Victoria combined that entered the sea. Year by year the seals 
have been driven further north, and each suecessive year has seen an increase in the 
number of poachers. Last year (1890) twenty-three schooners sailed from Victoria, 
and this year the number reported had increased out of all proportion, 
