68 ORAL ARGUMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. PHELPS. 



had utterly perished; that they were sustained up to that time by no 

 evidence whatever, we then have given us a body of what is called evi- 

 dence of a totally different kind takeu in 1892, which I shall allude to 

 in the proper order; I am speaking now of this case as it stood up to 

 the time of the filing of the British Counter Case. After stating' what 

 is claimed by the United States, that document goes on to say: 



It is then assumed that the ouly data were those derived from logs of cruizers, and 

 those of the British cruizers are reproduced in the form of Charts appended to the 

 United States Counter-Case, togetlier with the tracks of United States cruizers m 

 1892. 



In reply to these contentions, it may be stated the distribution of seiils in Behring 

 Sea in 1891, as shown on the British Commissioners' Maps, in so far as it relates to 

 the part of Behring Sea surrounding the Pribilof Islands, depended chietly upon the 

 several cruizers. But an insjiection of the tracks, as printed by the United States, 

 will show that the cruizers in most cases coutined their operations to the regions 

 surrounding the Pribilof Islands. 



Then: 



For other parts of the sea, other sources of information had to be employed. The 

 British Commissioners refer to those other sources (including their own voyages) in 

 a general way. 



I have read the way in which the British Commissioners before 

 referred to this subject, by saying that nothing Avas known in regard to 

 it that was at all reliable, and that there was nothing to change the 

 inference that these migratory animals followed their ordinary route; 

 and one section that I did not read was that, if the sealers knew other- 

 wise, they kei)t it to themselves because they desired to keep secret the 

 l)lace where the best sealing was to be found. The way in which they 

 referred to it was to admit that there was no other authority whatever; 

 and because there was no other authority they desired to set on foot 

 these explorations by the ships of the British Government, which the 

 Americans had done for themselves; and, on the strength of those 

 observations, they base these Charts. Is there any explanation? Is 

 there any excuse '? Not one word. I have read it all. 



That is the way, Sir, that this question stood when the Counter Case 

 was filed. What is the Counter Casel It is a document by which 

 under the interpretation of this Treaty adopted by Great Britain, and 

 which has been the subject of observation before in the preliminary 

 argument that you listened to on the admissibility of evidence, the 

 whole body of evidence put in on the part of Great Britain on all ques- 

 tions of fact, except what is found in the British Commissioners' lieport, 

 was put in at a period too late to be met or replied to by the United 

 States. 



So that this case iiresents the extraordinary spectacle, unknown as it 

 seems to me in any Court of Justice before, of a trial u])on important 

 issues of fact and very voluminous evidence of every description, includ- 

 ing many new descriptions not known before, put in by one side, none 

 of which the other side has any opportunity to reply to or even to read 

 until it is too late to put in evidence in explanation, impeachment, or 

 contradiction. 



Now, in that Counter Case, they return to the charge, and bring for- 

 ward a considerable body of what they regard as proof, and what is 

 proof as far as it goes undoubtedly, — on this question of intermingling. 

 If it had been left where it was left by the parties and the two sets of 

 Commissioners in the first place, it would not have been open to any 

 contradiction, except so far as the Ma])s of the British Coinnsissioners 

 attemi)t to introduce a contradiction, which I have shown is completely 

 refuted. In the very extraordinary document called the Supplemen- 

 tary Eei^ort of the British Commissioners which has been received here 



