Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

of the report.

In consistencies gestation is stated by the Commissioners to be about twelve months (Sec. 434), coition in the water would necessarily be four or even six weeks (Sec. 306) later than the arrival of cows at the Islands, which would necessitate the arrival of the cows by as many weeks later the following year, since they give birth to their young immediately upon landing (Sec. 30).

Late arrival of the cows at the Islands.

If the frequency of pelagic coition be as great as alleged in the Report, the date of the arrival of the cows would be growing continually later and would be now much later than in former years. No proof is offered in the Report on this important point. In opposition thereto the United States Commissioners have appended to their report a table showing the arrival of the various classes of seals on the Islands,' and the United States herewith submit on the same question the further evidence of Maj. W. H. Williams, Special Treasury Agent in charge of the Pribilof Islands, who states that 95 per cent of the cows had given birth to their young by July 12, 1891, showing the arrivals must have been at the usual time,2 and of Mr. Stanley-Brown, who arrived on the Islands on the 9th of June, 1892, and who states that some cows had arrived previous to that date.3

Case of the United States, p. 386.

Post p. 397.

3 Post p. 386.

MANAGEMENT OF THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS AS THE AL-
LEGED CAUSE OF THE DECREASE OF THE ALASKAN
SEAL HERD.

The British Commissioners at several places in their Report admit that the regulations in force and the methods employed in taking seals on the Pribilof Islands are the best that could have been adopted, having been founded on the long experience of the Russian Government after nearly a century of occupation (see Secs. 659, 676). The Report further states that "from a transcendental point of view the methods proposed were appropriate, and even perfect, but in practical execution, and as judged by the results of a series of years, they proved to be faulty and injurious" (Sec. 662). It is, therefore, not the methods, but the manner of their execution, which is the subject of criticism by the Commissioners. Other than this general charge of faulty execution, the one variation from the Russian methods made by the United States which is disapproved of in the Report is the number of seals allowed to be taken (Sec. 659).

The methods ad

mitted to be al

most perfect.

Excessive killing alleged.

limited to period 1870-1880.

In establishing their assertion that the number, Proof must be of seals annually killed on the Islands was excessive, it is insisted by the United States that the Commissioners should be confined to the first decade of the lease of the Pribilof Islands to the Alaska Commercial Company (1871-1880), be

12364-5

Proof must be cause pelagic sealing was then too insignificant limited to period 1870-1880. to perceptibly affect seal life, and that any consideration of the management subsequent to the introduction of pelagic sealing, which is admitted to be a factor "tending towards decrease" (Sec. 60), is irrelevant to the question at issue, unless it can be shown that there was a sufficient increase in the number of seals killed on the Islands, or sufficient changes in the methods employed in taking the quota, to materially affect and deplete the seal herd, even without the introduction of pelagic sealing.

Admission as to period after decided decrease.

The United States admit that, after a decided decrease in the birth rate of the seal herd had been caused by pelagic sealing, the number allowed by the lease to be killed was more than the reduced herd could properly endure; but they assert that any evil effects resulting from the management on the Islands is directly chargeable to the conditions established by pelagic sealing.

It was not until the year 1889 that the decrease in the birth rate of the seal herd (which decrease had been augmented annually by an ever increasing fleet of pelagic sealers) became sufficiently evident among the young male portion of the herd to seriously attract the notice of and to alarm the Government agents on the Islands.'

Case of the United States, p. 184.

[ocr errors][ocr errors]

period after de

In that year for the first time the weight of skins Admission as to fell below the average of former years. The cided decrease. report of the official in charge of the Islands resulted in an immediate reduction of the quota allowed by the Treasury Department at Washington, and in a curtailment of the time allowed within which to take such quota. Notwithstanding the endeavors of the United States to meet the new conditions created by pelagic sealing with restrictions upon slaughter, which were made still more rigid in 1891, the herd continued to become more and more depleted, and in 1892 a decrease appears over 1891, though the consensus of opinion of those on the Islands is that in the last year the male seals have increased to a limited extent.3

such admission.

The United States, however, insist that the Irrelevancy of failure, if any, to take into account the "new factor" (viz, pelagic sealing) is wholly irrelevant to the true issue, and they have presented testimony in relation to the management on the Islands for the purpose of showing, and which shows, that such management could not, under normal conditions, have caused a decrease in the Pribilof seal herd.

Max Heilbronner, post p. 369 and table facing.
Case of the United States, p. 153.

3J. Stanley-Brown, post p. 385.

Failure of Re- The Report fails to establish a single instance

port to show

agement

1880.

after

change of man- where the management on the Islands or the methods employed thereon have been changed since 1880 from the "appropriate and even perfect" system adopted in 1870, or where the number of seals killed annually has been increased beyond the annual quota of the first ten years of the lease.

Reservation to charges fraud.

as

of

The Government of the United States reserves to another portion of this Counter Case the repeated and, as it conceives, very unjustifiable insinuations of the Commissioners of the malfeasance by United States officers, of fraudulent practices of the Alaska Commercial Company when lessees, and of collusion, necessarily implied, by the London firm of C. M. Lampson & Company; only stating here, that all such evident attempts to mislead the Tribunal of Arbitration and to obscure the true issue are unfounded in fact and unsupported by proof or evidence of any sort.

All reference, therefore, to the management of the Pribilof Islands subsequent to the introduction of pelagic sealing, when it became a factor in the decrease of the seal herd, the United States repeat, is irrelevant to the true issuethe cause of the present depleted condition of the Pribilof rookeries.

« AnteriorContinuar »