326 THE ASIATIC FQR-SEAL ISLANDS. 



States Government, invoking similar arrangement or convention with our Government 

 for the protection of the fur-seal fisheries in the waters of their northern islands." 

 Scarcely more than a week later the Japanese minister of foreign affairs, Count Ito 

 Hirobumi, defined the standpoint of his own Government as follows: 



The unregulated and indiscriminate slaughter of the sea otter, as well as the fur seal, on the 

 coasts of Japan and in their conterminous waters, is a subject which has for many years engaged the 

 serious attention of the Imperial Government. 



The experience of His Imperial Majesty's Government justifies the belief that the aid sought to 

 be obtained can be best secured by means of a cooperative international action, and they therefore 

 cordially approve of the suggestion of the honorable the Secretary of State. 



His Imperial Majesty's Government would be willing to enter an arrangement for the purpose 

 indicated, but they would wish, for the reasons assigned by Mr. Bayard in favor of the protection of 

 the fur seal in Bering Sea, to extend the principle of protection to the sea otter as well as the fur seal, 

 and to enlarge the protected zone so as to embrace the known habitat of that animal. 



Count Ito at once struck the keynote to Japan's position — the desire to include 

 the sea otter in any contemplated arrangement — and to this proposition she has wisely 

 held all these years. 



In the meantime negotiations were carried on in London between Great Britain, 

 the United States, and Russia, and the prospects at one time were quite favorable to 

 a practical solution. This lasted until July, 1888, when, Japan becoming impatient at 

 hearing no more of the matter, brought the question uj) again. The immediate reason 

 for the increased anxiety of the Japanese Government to reach an international 

 agreement was the unfortunate Nemo affair off" Copper Island, when, during an 

 attempted raid of the sea-otter rookery by the schooner Nemo, sailing from Japan, 

 three Japanese sailors were killed and several others wounded by the bullets of the 

 Copper Island guards. The first step was to ask the United States Government to 

 instruct its consuls in Japan to refrain from shipping Japanese subjects on board any 

 American vessels engaged or about to engage in otter or seal hunting. To her request 

 for being allowed to take part in the pending negotiations in London, Japan was 

 somewhat superciliously informed that she had better wait until the other powers had 

 come to an agreement; and as for the sea otter which she was so anxious to protect, 

 the then Secretary of State wrote our representative in Tokyo as follows, under August 

 9,1888: 



The convention which Japan will seek to make on the. same subject will, as you have indicated, 

 have to be shaped in some respects so as to meet the wishes of Japan in regard to the protection of 

 her interests in the sea otter. What this Government deems necessary for the preservation of the 

 seals in Bering Sea is entirely to prohibit the slaughter of them with firearms, nets, and other 

 destructive implements, at a distance from the coasts. The Department would be glad to learn the 

 views of the Japanese Government concerning the measures necessary for the protection of its 

 interests in the otter, and to be furnished with information respecting their territorial and pecuniary 

 extent. 



Our Government then wrote as if we ourselves had no interest in the sea otter, 

 and seemed to think that Japan is the only country concerned in the matter. There 

 was Eussia with an interest in the same animal as great as that of Japan, and there 

 were the American interests, greater than that of the two others together. It might 

 well have paid to have taken the hint from Japan. The shortsightedness, or 

 ignorance, of our own Government in this matter can only be explained by the 



