OBSTACLES TO PROTECTION 131 



well-equipped sealing vessels were sent out from Yokohama 

 and other ports in Japan, under the Japanese flag, which 

 hunted seals within three miles of the Pribilof Islands! Cana- 

 dian sealers were still hunting outside the protected zone, and 

 killing many Seals annually. 



Up to this date our Government had done everything' 

 in its power to prevent the extermination of the Fur-Seal 

 and afford it a just measure of protection. England could 

 go no farther without giving grave offence to Canada. But 

 in England about $2,000,000 of capital was invested in the 

 business of dyeing and dressing Fur-Seal skins, and this work 

 employed between two thousand and three thousand opera- 

 tives. It had always been impossible for sealskins to be satis- 

 factorily dyed and dressed in America. 



Prior to 1910 the insurmountable obstacle to the protec- 

 tion of the Fur-Seal was its fatal habit of going to sea, far 

 from its hauling-grounds, coupled with the belief of a large 

 number of Canadians and Americans that a Seal at sea was 

 the lawful prize of him who could take it. Patriotism, and 

 the desire for the greatest good of the greatest number, did 

 not enter into their calculations. The American or Cana- 

 dian pelagic sealer claims that the open sea is his, and he cares 

 only for the $20 or $40 that each raw skin is worth. En- 

 gland could not reasonably be expected to quarrel with Canada 

 because of our desire to perpetuate our Seal herd, and derive 

 from it a revenue of a million dollars a year, — which is the 

 sum that the Fur-Seals would yield to-day but for the slaugh- 

 ter of 1,000,000 females at sea and starvation of 1,000,000 

 pups at sea and on shore. 



