EQUILIBRIUM MEANS COMMERCIAL RUIN. 159 
taking seals there, we may not expect that the more accessible haunts of the seals of 
‘the North Pacitic will be abandoned. 
THE EQUILIBRIUM COULD NOT BE MAINTAINED. 
In a theoretical sense there is a state of equilibrium of the herd which is com- 
patible with a limited amount of pelagic sealing. The condition of this equilibrium 
we have just discussed. We know it must be too low to leave any profit either in 
pelagic sealing or in land sealing. Pelagic sealing, already unprofitable, must be 
reduced to less than one-third its present extent before this state of equilibrium is 
reached. No manner of protection could enforce the necessary limits to such pelagic 
sealing and they are not self-adjustable. Furthermore, the herd under such conditions 
would not be worth protecting on land. Any such protection must be maintained at 
a loss to the United States. To remove it from the herd even for a short period of 
time would leave the breeding haunts of the animals open to invasion, and the 
destruction so vigorously begun at sea would be speedily completed on land. 
EQUILIBRIUM EXISTS ONLY FAR BELOW COMMERCIAL RUIN. 
Thus, while an equilibrium is possible, it must not be forgotten that it exists only 
far below the point of commercial profit, and must prove unsatisfactory either to the 
interests of the United States or to those of the pelagic sealer.' 
1This equilibrium of the fur-seal herd is a mere figure of speech, a juggling with words for 
diplomatic purposes. In the conclusions of the recent conference of experts at Washington the 
possibility of this theoretical equilibrium was acknowledged by both sides, because self-evident 
whatever the conditions. But the fact was not considered in any way pertinent, as ‘‘equilibrium” in 
this sense is only another name for commercial destruction. This admission that pelagic sealing 
tends to cease as the herd dies ont has however been used by the Canadian Government as a pretext 
for declining to take immediate action in the fur-seal matter. (See Senate Doc. 40, Fifty-fifth 
Congress, second session, 1897, p. 65.) 
This theory of equilibrium has received an attention wholly undeserved. In his report for 
1896 Professor Thompson suggested that the equilibrium was then reached. He was forced in the 
investigatious of 1897 to admit that the herd had suffered a measurable decline since 1896. Not- 
withstanding this fact we find the following statement in the concluding paragraph of his report 
for 1897: “A remedy has already been automatically applied in the reduction of the pelagic fleet to 
less than one-half its numbers of a year ago. The tendency is to equilibrium. The total pelagic 
catch for this year is not likely to exceed 20,000, against 36,000 last year, and it may be that with a 
catch so greatly diminished the point of equilibrium has at length been attained.” 
It is certainly remarkable that Professor Thompson should speak of commercial destruction as a 
“remedy” for zoological destruction. This is another way of saying that ‘‘death cures all ills;” 
but that mode of cure does not satisfy the friends of the patient. It is, moreover, not true that the 
point of equilibrium is reached, nor can it be reached until the catch at sea falls to less than 
one-twentieth of the actual number of breeding females. Pelagic sealing must therefore decline to 
one-third its present catch before the equilibrium is reached. 
The British Government is not unaware of these facts, but to give them due recognition in 
action would interfere with the national policy in this matter. This is to permit the Canadian 
sealers to get out of the fur-seal herd everything they can before the failure of the herd forces the 
alleged industry wholly out of existence. In other words, one chief function of British Imperialism 
is to serve as a “fence” for greedy colonies over whose actions she has no control. We find no more 
fitting words to characterize the attitude of Great Britain toward this fur-seal question than the 
words of Professor Nicholson, of Edinburgh: ‘‘There can be no question, in the light of history, 
that the political instinct of the English people—or to adopt the popular language of the moment, the 
original sin of the nation—is to covet everything of its neighbors worth coveting, and it is not 
content until the sin is complete.” \ 
