The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-03-15
THE BERING SEA DIFFICULTY.

The refusal of Lord Salisbury to renew
last years modus riuendi for BeTing sea
for another season complicates the settle
ment of a vexing question and creates a
critical political situation. The law
against seal-killing in the waters of
Alaska remains unrepeaied on our statute
books. The obligation to execute that
law is made imperative on the president,
and he is required by the express man.
date of congress to warn all poachers out
of those waters by proclamation, and such
proclamation was issued early in the
year. The United States has consented to
refer to arbitration the question as to now
much area the waters of Alaska include,
and now Lord Salisbury declines to ex-
tend the agreement of 1891, which con-
siders the whole treaty area of our side of
Boring sea included in those waters.
The object of last years agreement was
to prevent private sealers from entering
the disputed waters until the board of
arbitration should be appointed and
should render its decision, and the
necessity for the renewal of that agree
ment is precisely as great now as the neces-
sity for originally making it. Last year no
liability of indemnity to British Column
bia sealers for seizure was incurred be-
cause the vessels were kept out or driven
out by the joint action of Great Britain
and the United States. But if the deci-
sion of the board of arbitration should be
against our government, it might incur
serious responsibilities expelling the seal
ers this year. If Great Britain means to
resist our cruisers the situation would
become at once most serious.
| The difference between the closed zone
! of thirty miles around the seal rookeries
| and the total exclusion of private sealing
| vessels from Boring sea would be enormous
! upon seal life. The Fur Trade Revielc saws
| that if the hundred or more seal pirate
vessels had been permitted to enter Berlin g
/ sea last summer sit would have taken at
! least 100000 seals there, and nearly all of
these would have been female seals" 1t
adds the further calculation that as "at
least three seals are destroyed by the
| pelagic sealer for every one that he secures,
the modus riuendi in force clearly saved the
enormous total of at least from $50. 900 to
100000 seals, old and young, unborn and
born. That would have left upon our
rookeries only half million seals at the
close of the season of 1891, and nearly halt
. this number would have been the pups of
that years birth" The same authority
believes that in consequence of last years
/ restriction, there were between 10000 and
800, 900 seals on the islands just before they
took their departure southwark for the
/ winter.
United States Agent Elliott shows that
the animals have decreased at the Pribilof
islands from 5000. 900 to fewer than /. CO.,
0o0 within twenty years. and those prop
| erly killable 10 less than one-tenth. The
lessees Of the Pribilof islands can kill
only males of a prescribed age, and can
secure the skins of all that are killed. In
pelagic hunting, indiscriminate slaughter,
without regard 10 sex or age, is inevitable.
and many seals that are shot sink and are
! not recovered.
Our government. relies chiefly upon the
revenue from these islands 10 cover the
interest on its purchase of Alaska and the
cost of maintaining that territory, and as
| a year or even two or three years NAV
elapse before the arbiters complete their
work the necessity for a temporary agree
ment in the meantime is as great now as
last year. The action of Lord Salisbury
is attributed 10 Canadian influence. Three
times before the present date at hopeful
stage of the negotiations Canada has inter-
fered TO prevent conclusion honorable TO
both parties. This action of Canadian
Tory leaders. like Sir Charles Upper, is
exceedingly short-sighted. 1t lies in the
power OF our government TO pinch Canada
severely by policy of retaliation, and if
there ever should be any serious trouble
between the United States and Great
Britain in consequence of the enforcement,