The herald., 1897-08-03
PLAIN WORDS
On the Subject of Pelagic
Sealing
KILLING MUST BE STOPPED
Or EXPERIMENTATION WILL RE
KILLING MUST BE STOPPED
OR DETERMINATION WILL BE
LIKELY
Liebes, the Lessee Of the Pribyloff
Islands, Talks From the Com
mercial Standpoint
Associated Press Special Wire.


LONDON, August 2-Herman Liebes,
president of H. Liebes & Co., of San
Francisco which firm, with David Og-
den Mills, the New York banker, and
Lloyd Tevis, president of Wells Fargo
& Co.'s express system, and also of that
firms bank Of San Francisco, compose
the North American Collateral company
lessee. from the United States govern
ment of the Pribyloff islands seaeries
has addressed a letter to the Times, in
which, among other things, he says: 81
and my colleagues of the North Ameri-
can company disclaim any responsibility
for the interests of one nationality and
against the interests of another, and
We do not and never have suggested that
the English government should sur
render the exercise of a lucrative in
dustry without receiving an equivalent
merely in order to increase our actual
and prospective profits
"Pelagic sealing is open to ourselves
and to the whole world, and speaking
for myself (and 1 am sure should have
the cooperation of my colleagues) I
should be perfectly willing to concur in
any reasonable arrangement with our
own and also with the British govern
ment with a view to (entirely or at any
rate for given number of years. dis
continuing the killing of seals on the
islands in question as also pelagic seal
ing, and I would do this, not because the
killing of young bachelor seals as con-
Quoted upon the Pribyloff islands in any
way endangers the propagation Of the
seal (because I am sure it is noD, but
simply to assist in bringing about an
arrangement for the suspension of
pelagic sealing in order to avoid what
1 am absolutely satisfied will otherwise
very shortly come to pass viz, the en-
tire determination Of the seal from the
waters in question, and further because
/ will not share the responsibility of
those who, by allowing the present bar
barous system to be continued, are
rapidly destroying in a very cruel way
a very valuable industry.
Prof. Thompson's conclusion with
reference to the decreased supply of
seals is very unsa tisfactory He says:
We may set the 10000 skins taken this
year against the 500, 900 that were got
ten with much less difficulty in the plenti-
tude Of supply. We should then have to
admit that the herd was now something
less than one-third of what it was 20
years ago. Even in this admission we
admit too much, for apart from other
corrections that might be suggested, we
had merely added for the purpose OF
such comparison to 1t 10000 taken on
the islands, the number of males taken
in the sea, but this, for lack Of better
knowledge of the proportion of each sex
and age in the pelagic catch, we cannot
do
Il am in a position to prove conclu-
,sively that the seals caught by the pela-
gic, sealers are at least so per cent fe-
males and the remaining 20 per cent are
mostly pups in which sex is not distin-
quisha Bile after the skins are removed
from the body.
"a great deal has been said abou.
Americans not paying compensation to
the owners OF the vessels seized in the
years 1867 and 1890, list of which ves-
sells is set forth in the award. The Paris
arbitrators by their award did not assess
any damages but left that matter open
for further negotiations between the
two governments. The owners of the
'NSsN4s- s~S4H-U NClC dSkeQ u
send their claims and did so.
"All the merchants who had purchas-
ed the pelagic seal catches from the
ships which had not been seized by the
United States government during the
years mentioned in the arbitra tors
award, were asked to give evidence be-
fore the committee of prices paid to the
ship owners for the seals caught during
the eight years, and it appeared tha.
the claims made in behalf of the vesse !s
seized were excessive both In quantity
and price. The numbers claimed were
considerably in excess of the largest
catch on any Of the United States ves-
sells and the prices asked were certainly
double the prices obtained by any of the
other vessels not seized.
EVERY effort is being made by the
commission appointed for the purpose
of ass essing the compensation in British
Columbia, consisting of the chief just
ice of Canada and judge of the United
States. who are sitting there to come
to conclusion upon the point. What
ever compensation is awarded will be
promptly paid"
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