Sir Julian Pauncefote to Mr. Blaine.
Washington, February 29, 1892. (Received March 1.)
Sir: Immediately upon the receipt of your note of the 24th instant, respecting a renewal of the modus vivendi in Behring Sea, and in accordance with the wish therein expressed, I telegraphed its contents to the Marquis of Salisbury. In that note, after observing that it is impossible to conclude the arbitration within the time originally set and that the delays have been much greater on the part of Great Britain than on the part of the United States, you proceed to inform me that, in the view of the President, the new modus vivendi should be much the same as that of last year in terms; that, owing to the earlier date this [Page 620] year, it could be more effectively executed; but that, “if Her Majesty’s Government would make their efforts most effective, the sealing in the North Pacific Ocean should be forbidden.”
After pointing out “the great need of an effective modus,” you state that “holding an arbitration in regard to the rightful mode of taking seals, while their destruction goes forward, would be as if, while an arbitration to the title to timber land were in progress, one party should remove all the trees.”
I have the honor to inform you that I have received a reply from Lord Salisbury to the following effect:
In the first place, his lordship states that he can not in any degree admit that the delays have been greater on the part of Great Britain than on the part of the United States.
As regards the necessity for another modus vivendi, Her Majesty’s Government consented to that measure last year solely on the ground that it was supposed that there would be danger to the preservation of the seal species in Behring Sea unless some interval in the slaughter of seals were prescribed both at sea and on land. But Her Majesty’s Government have received no information to show that so drastic a remedy is necessary for two consecutive seasons. On the contrary, the British commissioners on the Behring Sea joint commission have informed Her Majesty’s Government that, so far as pelagic sealing is concerned, there is no danger of any serious diminution of the fur-seal species as a consequence of this year’s hunting.
Nevertheless, Lord Salisbury would not object, as a temporary measure of precaution for this season, to the prohibition of all killing at sea within a zone extending to not more than 30 nautical miles around the Pribyloff Islands, such prohibition being conditional on the restriction of the number of seals to be killed for any purpose on the islands to a maximum of 30,000. Lord Salisbury, referring to the passage in your note in which you compare the case to an arbitration about timber land, from which the trees are being removed by one of the parties, observes that he hardly thinks the simile quite apposite. His lordship suggests that the case is more like one of arbitration respecting the title to a meadow. While the arbitration is going on, he adds, we cut the grass; and, quite rightly, for the grass will be reproduced next year, and so will the seals.
I have, etc.,