26 ORAL ARGUMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. PHELPS. 



until they are cauglit; no person, therefore, can have property in them until he has 

 actually reduced them into possession by capture. 



It requires something more than a mere declaration that the Government or citi- 

 zeus of the United States, or even other countries interested in the seal trade, are 

 losers by a certain course of proceeding to render that course an immoral oue. 



That is all the defence — a defence based upon a teclinical proposition 

 of law — tbat you cannot call tliis contra honos mores, (as my friend the 

 Attorney General argues here) until it is agreed by nations so to clas- 

 sify it. My friend Mr. Coudert was kind enougli to attribute to me the 

 honour of having introduced into this discussion the Latin phrase contra 

 honos mores. I must disclaim it. Such ideas as I possess I am under 

 the necessity of expressing, as well as I can, in the P^nglish language, 

 with which I am more familiar. Whether the slaughter of animals in 

 this condition, in such a manner as has been alluded to, is a breach 

 of good manners, may be remitted to the forum of good manners to 

 consider. I should not so class it. It is very interesting to see in the 

 history of discussion, what is the first step that always has to be taken, 

 and always is taken, in defending that which is indefensible; it is to 

 find a phrase by which it can be spoken of without describing its 

 character. Some people acquire a considerable reputation in devising 

 ingenious circumlocutions by which they can describe a thing too objec- 

 tionable to be stated in straightforward langnage, througli the con- 

 venient cover of the Latin or the French. That is not one of my accom- 

 plishments, and I must modestly disclaim the honour which my friend 

 has attributed to me of introducing this phrase. 



Now in the latter part of this same letter there is one other sentence 

 by Lord Salisbury. 1 am reading, Sir, from page 210: 



The statement that it is " a fact now held beyond denial or doiibt that the taking 

 of seals in the open sea rapidly leads to their extinction" would admit of reply, and 

 abundant evidence could be adduced on the other side. But as it is proposed that 

 this part of the question should be examined by a committee to be appointed by the 

 two Governments, it is not necessary that I should deal with it here. 



Now, Sir, if I am not mistaken, in those two paragraphs in the same 

 letter, in one of which he says (as the learned Attorney General has 

 said here), that this business, whatever it is, cannot be technically 

 classed as contra honos mores until the nations have agreed to call it 

 so, — and the other in which he says that this statement by Mr. Blaine 

 that it certainly leads to extermination would admit of reply and that 

 there is or may be evidence on the other side, is every word tliat can 

 be ascribed to Great Britain from the beginning to the end of all this 

 correspondence, which approaches the point of defending eitlier the 

 character or the consequences of this business that is called '^ pelagic 

 sealing." Another invention, (in the English language, but derived 

 from the Greek as far as the word " j)elagic" is concerned), by which 

 this slaughter is characterized. 



1 wish now to call attention on this point to some extracts from 

 British correspondence, having pointed out that, strenuous as Great 

 Britain was in asserting what she claimed to be the rights of the sea, 

 the business itself never was defended except in the faint manner I 

 have indicated. On the other hand, in April 1890, Sir Julian Paun- 

 cefote writes to Mr. Blaine — 1 am reading from the same United States 

 Appendix, page 205. 



It has been admitted, from the common (-ement, that the sole object of the nego- 

 ciation is the preservation of the fur-seal species for tlie benefit of nianlcind, aud 

 that no considerations of advantage to any particular nation, or of benefit to any 

 private interest, should enter into the question. 



