Sir Julian Pauncefote to Mr. Wharton.

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of June 9, delivered this day, in reply to my note of the 8th, in which I transmitted for the consideration of your Government the draft of a proposed agreement for a modus vivendi during the present fur-seal fishery season in Behring Sea, with certain mollifications and additions suggested therein by the Marquis of Salisbury.

I have telegraphed the substance of your note under reply to his lordship, and I hope to be able to communicate to you his observations thereon in the course of to-morrow or the following day. In the meanwhile, with reference to the complaint that new conditions should have been suggested at this stage by Lord Salisbury, I would beg leave to point out that all his lordship’s suggestions are obviously dictated by a desire to render the modus vivendi more effective and to do all that is possible in the common interest for the protection and the preservation of the seal species during the present season.

In my humble opinion, therefore, it is to be regretted that those suggestions should not have commended themselves to the favorable consideration of the President. Thus the object of the proposed insertion in article 2 of the words “food skins, and not for tax and shipment,” which you qualify as “extraordinary,” was not to prevent the export and sale of the 7,500 seal skins, of which the proceeds are intended to cover the cost of food, clothing, fuel, and other necessaries for the natives. Its sole object was to stop the injurious practice of driving and redriving the herds to the killing grounds for selection, which is resorted to in the case of seals killed “for tax and shipment,” and is stated by experts to be the main cause of the depletion of male seal life on the islands.

I would refer you on this point to the report of Special Treasury Agent C. J. Goff, laid before Congress (Ex. Doc. No. 49.), pp. 4 and 29 also to the report of Assistant Treasury Agent Joseph Murray, at page 85 and that of Assistant Treasury Agent A. W. Lavender, at page 9 of the same Congressional paper.

As regards Lord Salisbury’s proposal of a joint commission, it is by no means a new one. It has long been called for by public opinion in both countries. It was inserted among Lord Salisbury’s last proposals for the arbitration agreement in expectation that the latter document would be signed contemporaneously with the agreement for a modus vivendi. But, as your Government is not prepared to bring the arbitration negotiation to a conclusion without further consideration and as it is of the highest importance that the joint commission [Page 568] should be appointed at once, in order to enter upon its functions during the present fishery season, Lord Salisbury has had no alternative but to urge the insertion of the article providing for a joint commission in the agreement for the modus vivendi, of which it should, in the opinion of Her Majesty’s Government, be a component part.

The objection of the President to that article in the modus vivendi appears to me to create the greatest difficulty which has yet presented itself in the course of this negotiation, and I earnestly hope that, if Lord Salisbury should be disposed to waive the other conditions to which exception is taken in your note, the President, on his part, will accede to his lordship’s wishes in respect of the joint commission.

I have, etc.,

Julian Pauncefote.