The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1897-04-12

unless some arrangement can be made
before the end of May. For the reason
that ex-Secretary Foster was familiar
with the early stage of the negotiations
leading up to the Paris arbitration,
while to ex-Secretary Hamlin is due
to large measure the credit of the
conduct of the negotiations of the last
administration on this subject, they
have been chosen to assist now in COM
posing this threatened difficulty.
The trouble appears to have begun
principally through the refusal of the
British authorities to renew last year
the regulations requiring British YES
sells going into the seal waters to place
their firearms under SEAL to give eff
feet to the Paris regulation, prohib-
iting the use of such weapons in kill
ing seals. This regulation was laid
down on evidence that large proper
ton of the seals killed with guns sank
and were never recovered, involving
wasteful mortality. The British hav
ing refused to seal up their arms, the
United States Government adopted the
plan of making most thorough search
of every sealing vessel in Behring Sea.
There was justification for search
in the regulations, but again the Brit
lsh Government protested, claiming
that British vessels We're thereby sub
Jected to unnecessary and most veX-
atious detentionS and that their
| catches were overhauled and thrown
into confusion and that the only re-
suit was the discovery of one skin in
which the American boarding officer
thought he saw a shot wound, and of
log book, a few days in arrears in
| entries. Yet for this tWenty-Six out
| of twenty nine British vessels in the
| seal waters We're searched eighty-two
| times, one vessel being boarded six
| times in twenty-four days.
| Secretary Olney On the other hand,
| justified the course of the revenue Of
ficers by pointing out that all Of the
| three seized vessels were convicted in
British courts. He also gave some
| startling figures to show the need of
additional restrictive regulations which
he invited the British Government to
accept. From actual count he showed
that in 1880 no less than $4,000 dead
seal pups were found on seal islands,
which had persisted from starvation be-
cause their mothers had been killed at
sea by sealing vessels.
Also it was stated that in the same
| season, the vessels had taken 44.169
skins, as against 81 $50 in the previous
| year and Secretary Olney asserted that
| if the killing were to go on at this
| rate the total destruction of the seal
! herd would be accomplished in the
course of about two more seasons To
! make the showing worse from our
| point of view, it was stated that the
lawful catch of the seal islands had
| largely fallen. Experiments were made
| to devise a way to prevent the use of
| firearms by poachers, but they came to
nothing and the upshot was that both
| sides stood firm, the British warning
| against further indiscriminate search
! of British vessels and Secretary Olney
standing on our right to make it,
| Meanwhile an expert commission sent
| out by the Governments made an eX-
| haustive report tending to sustain Sec
rotary Olney's assertions regarding the
! probable determination of the seals
under present conditions and it must
| be upon this basis that negotiations
will now proceed