926 APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
present year the killing of seals at sea should be prohibited within a 
given radius not exceeding 30 nautical miles round the Pribyloff Islands 
on condition that the number of seals to be killed for any purpose on 
the islands shall be restricted to a definite amount, not exceeding 30,000 
atthe utmost. A speedy decision is necessary, aS we are informed that 
the sealing vessels are already leaving port. 
Mr. Blaine’s comparison of the present situation to a question of 
ownership of timber land does not appear to me to be applicable. The 
case resembles rather an arbitration on the title to a meadow. While 
the arbitration is pending the party in actual possession cuts the grass, 
and rightly so, inasmuch as next year the grass will be reproduced, 
This will equally be the case with the seals. 
Sir J. Pauncefote to the Marquis of Salisbury.—( Received February 28.) 
[Telegraphic.] 
WASHINGTON, February 26, 1892. 
I am requested by Mr. Blaine to inform your Lordship that he has 
received the following Report from the United States Consul at Victo- 
ria: ‘Forty-six sealing vessels cleared to date. Six or seven more to 
go. At the same date last year only thirty-one cleared.” 
146 No. 225. 
Sir J. Pauncefote to the Marquis of Salisbury.—( Received February 28.) 
[Telegraphic.] 
WASHINGTON, February 27, 1892. 
The Convention will be signed on Monday, at 11 A. M. 
Sir J. Pauncefote to the Marquis of Salisbury.—( Received March 1.) 
WASHINGTON, February 18, 1892. 
My Lorp: I have the honour to inclose herewith copies of a corre- 
spondence which has taken place between Mr. Blaine and myself on 
the subject of the Behring’s Sea Joint Commission. 
Your Lordship will remember that the British Commissioners were 
summoned to Washington at the request of Mr. Blaine, who, after hay- 
ing persistently refused to agree to the meeting of the Joint Commission 
until after the signature of the Arbitration Convention, informed me 
on the 13th January (as I had the honour to report to your Lordship 
by telegraph on the same day) that he was now anxious that the Com- 
mission should sit at once, and he proposed Washington as the most 
convenient place of meeting. Accordingly Sir George Baden-Powell, 
