FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF THE COMMANDER ISLANDS 
313 
nated, to the permanent loss of all parties. Fourteen years previously sealing experts 
of all the powers interested had agreed as to the essential facts and the best methods 
for protecting the seals, but political and financial considerations had prevented action 
upon their recommendations. Such considerations would obviously be of no impor- 
tance when the seals themselves should have ceased to exist, hence the belated 
willingness of the four governments to compromise their claims. 
Under the auspices of the United States Department of State an international 
conference was convened in Washington on May 5, 1911, for the purpose of conclud- 
ing a treaty affecting the fur seals of the North Pacific Ocean. The powers attending 
the conference were Great Britain, Russia, Japan, and the United States. The 
principle that guided the negotiations seems to have been an acknowledgment of the 
right of the pelagic sealers to compensation for giving up their preying on the seal 
herds outside territorial Avaters. At any rate, the governments possessing seal 
rookeries agreed to pay the others 15 and 10 per cent of the sealskins taken. A 
treaty was signed on July 7, 1911, and after ratification became effective on Decem- 
ber 15, 1911, and was to continue in force for a period of 15 years from that date 
and thereafter until terminated by 12 months' written notice given by one or more 
of the parties to all of the others, Avhich notice may be given at the expiration of 14 
years or at any time afterwards. 
By this treaty pelagic sealing was forbidden in the waters of the North Pacific 
Ocean north of 30° north latitude and including the Seas of Bering, Kamchatka, 
Okhotsk, and Japan, with the exception that "Indians, Ainos. Aleuts, and other 
aborigines" may carry on pelagic sealing in canoes without firearms under cer- 
tain conditions specified, among them that these aborigines must not be "under 
contract to deliver the skins to any person. " There is nothing, however, forbidding 
these aborigines to sell the skins. Othorsvise no ])erson or vessel shall be per- 
mitted to use any part of the territory of any of the signatory powers for any 
purposes whatsoever connected with the operations of j)elagic sealing, nor shall 
any sealskins not certified to have been taken legally be permitted to be brought 
into the territory of any of these powers. The latter agree to enact and enforce 
such legislation as may be necessary with appropriate penalties for violations, 
and to cooperate with each other in taking such measures as may be appropriate 
and available for the purpose. In addition, the United States, Japan, and Russia 
agree to maintain a guard or patrol in the waters frequented by their respective 
seal herds. This would entitle Russia to maintain a guard off the Japanese coasts 
during the winter and spring migrations of the Commander Islands seals. 
This apparently throws the burden of protecting the seals at sea against the 
illegal pelagic sealing by nationals of the other powers upon the one in whose 
territory the herd breeds, thus relieving the government of the offending 
sealers of any obligation to interfere with them, except to prevent them from 
bringing the illegally taken skins into its territory and to try the offenders and 
impose upon them penalties of its own making, when such offenders shall 
have been delivered to its authorized official by the naval or other duly com- 
missioned officer of the government making the seizure. In other words, in 
order to protect its seals against pelagic sealers the Russian Government must 
