COMMISSION OF INQUIRY. 179 
In the event of an adverse decision for the United States on these legal 
questions, the final proposition provided that the court of arbitration should take up 
a consideration of the rules and regulations necessary for the proper protection of 
the herd when at sea and beyond the jurisdiction of the United States. These 
propositions, after amendment and discussion, were finally accepted as the basis of 
au arbitration and were embodied in a treaty between the United States and Great 
Britain, signed on February 29, 1892, and duly ratified. This treaty is printed in 
Appendix IT of this report. 
THE MODUS VIVENDI. 
While the discussion of the treaty was under way, and in view of its probable 
consummation, a modus vivendi was agreed to in June, 1891, which closed Bering Sea 
to pelagic sealing and limited the land catch on the islands to a nominal figure for 
the support of the natives depending upon the fur seals for food. The promulgation of 
this measure was too late in the season to make it possible of enforcement, the pelagic 
fleet having already gone to sea. After the signing of the treaty in the following year 
this modus vivendi was renewed and continued in force until the conclusion of the 
labors of the arbitration convention. The text of the agreement will be found in 
Appendix II. 
THE JOINT COMMISSION OF INQUIRY. 
In the progress of the discussion leading up to the convention of February, 1892, 
it was decided that a commission of experts representing each Government should 
visit the seal islands and report on the habits and condition of the fur-seal herd with 
a view to the information of the arbitration convention. To expedite matters this 
commission was tentatively designated and entered upon its work in the summer of 
1891, being officially recognized after the treaty-was finally agreed to in the spring of 
1892. 
THE TRIBUNAL OF ARBITRATION. 
In accordance with the provisions of the treaty of 1892 the Tribunal of Arbitration 
duly convened at Paris in February, 1893, and concluded its labors on the 15th of 
August. Its decision of the legal questions involved being adverse to the United 
States, the Tribunal proceeded to formulate regulations for the protection and 
preservation of the fur seals. 
JOINT REPORT OF THE COMMISSION. 
Before taking up a detailed consideration of these regulations it will assist us in 
our understanding of them to consider briefly the results of the investigations on 
which: they were based. The joint commission of investigation representing the 
United States and Great Britain, after its visit to the islands in the summer of 1891, 
met at Washington in the spring of 1892, and after much discussion found itself 
unable to agree upon any facts of importance beyond the general proposition that 
the fur-seal herd had largely declined and that man was responsible for the decline. 
Accordingly, each commission of investigation submitted a separate report to its 
Government. These reports became the basis of each nation’s contention before the 
Tribunal regarding the condition and habits of the fur seals, 
