596 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
question would arise. In that case we could not stultify ourselves by 
submitting to Regulations not obligatory on all. 
Mr. Blaine then asked me what Her Majesty’s Government weuld con- 
sent to do after the lst May, pending the adhesion of the other Powers. 
Would a cessation of sealing be agreed to by them? I informed him, 
in reply, that I could not say what their action would be, but that 
probably the Regulations recommended by the Joint Commission or 
the Arbitrators, pending the result of the invitation to the Powers, 
would be voluntarily conformed to. Mr. Blaine then took my note with 
him to the Cabinet, and promised to send me a reply. 
No. 172. 
Sir J. Pauncefote to the Marquis of Salisbury.—( Received November 28.) 
[Telegraphic.] 
WASHINGTON, November 27, 1891. 
With reference to my telegram of the 24th instant, Mr. Blaine’s reply 
has just been received. Copy transmitted by post. It is to the follow- 
ing effect: 
[See Inclosure in Sir J. Pauncefote’s despatch of the 27th November: Inclosure in 
No. 179, infra.] 
121 No. 173. 
The Marquis of Salisbury to Sir J. Pauncefote. 
[Telegraphic.] 
FOREIGN OFFICE, November 29, 1891. 
I have received your telegram of the 27th instant, 
Mr. Blaine’s statement, in his note of which you report the receipt, 
that my first reservation is unnecessary answers the end which that 
reservation was intended to answer, and it may, therefore, be waived. 
I did not by my second reservation intend to propose that the practical 
execution of the Regulations should be delayed, but that the two Govy- 
ernments should protect themselves from being placed at the mercy of 
some third Power, which, if not pledged to observe the Regulations, 
might step in and secure the fishery at the times and places where the 
United States and England would bind themselves by their Agree- 
ment to abstain from it. It is necessary that some precaution should 
be taken in this direction, otherwise the vessels, both British and 
American, at present engaged in sealing, might all, by simply procur- 
ing a Russian register, recover their entire freedom. 
I should, therefore, wish you to ascertain whether the United States 
Government would be prepared to agree to some provision of the fol- 
lowing nature: 
If, after the expiration of one year from the date of any decision of 
the Arbitrators as to the necessity of concurrent Regulations, it should 
appear to either of the two Powers that such Regulations are being 
violated under the flag of a third Power, to the serious injury of the 
