ORAL ARGU:\rENT OF HON. EDWAED J. PHELPS. 185 



In order to do tlmt you inust therefore find either that the words of 

 the Treaty necessitate such a construction which phiinly tliey do not — 

 or-eise that the parties so understood it; and you tind that America 

 and Kussia understood it in one way, and Great Britain accepts that 

 with the knowledge of the construction tluit is put upon it, and the 

 reason why she did accept it, and ought to have accepted it, was because 

 that touched a point that she was not contending for. 



If she had been contending- for the right to go in and take fur-seals, 

 as she is now, she never would have signed that Treaty without explicit 

 language to that effect and she would have insisted on the words which 

 she proposed in the projet she sulunitted; because if she did not get 

 that, she did not get the nuitcrial thing, or one of the material things 

 in dispute. She abandoned that readily; and if she had insisted upon 

 it she would not have got it, because that Eussia would have thrown 

 open to the world this valuable industry is not to be supposed; it 

 would have broken oif the Treaty altogether. 



The Presideist. — Could you say that neither the United States 

 nor England had any actual interest in the sealing — they did no care 

 about it f 



Mr. Phelps. — Exactly, and that is the reason they did not insist 

 upon it. 



The President. — Is there any evidence in the case as to the date 

 when the fur industry began — that there was a connection between the 

 sealing in the Behring Sea and the far industry in London, — when the 

 consignments from Behring Sea to London began — when England began 

 to take any sort of interest in it? 



Mr. Phelps. — I have not the date in my mind. The seal skins first 

 went to China, and the exact date when they began to come to England 

 we will ascertain. 



The President. — Yery likely later than all these. 



Mr. Phelps. — It is not in my mind at the moment. 



The President. — It is not to be supposed that even London furriers 

 were interested then in the Behring Sea fur industry. 



Mr. Phelps. — ]\Ir. Foster suggests to me that it was a little before 

 the concession to the United States that the market was transferred to 

 London for these fnrs. 



General Foster. — The correspondence of the Company shows that 

 between 1850 and 18G0 they began to send to London. 



The President. — It seems very likely that it had no sort of effectual 

 interest for the Americans or Englisli to raise the question. That would 

 account for it not having been raised at all. 



Lord Hannen. — What they were claiming was the general right of 

 navigation in the high sea, with all that it carried with it. 



]\Ir. Phelps. — Exactly. 



The President. — That refers us back to the question of general 

 ]>rinci[)ie. 



Mv. Phelps. — Exactly. They never denied and they never inter- 

 Icred practically — their vessels did not go there, either from the United 

 States or Great Britain. They did not at all interrupt the position on 

 whicii we si and. 



Now, Sir, let me for a single moment — (I have been drawn into say- 

 ing more about this than I intended this morning) — consider the aspect 

 of the case from the point of view of the question that the President 

 suggested a little while ago, and suppose there was a misunderstanding. 

 Sui)p()se the case — not uncommon in the history of contracts — where a 

 contract is signed with language that is ambiguous, that is to say, that 



