ORAL ARGUMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. PHELPS. 193 



It does appear, however, that Mr. Dallas, as I have said before, 

 made a claim in respect of the "Loriot", and that claim, though made 

 the subject of correspondence, was subseciuently abandoned. 



Marifuis Venosta. — The case of the "Loriot" has not very much to 

 do with this. 



Mr. Phelps. — ISTo, it has not. It is only in the same line. 



Now what does all this prove. Jt proves what is the last thing I 

 desire to say about this much vexed subject, and what is the only 

 important thing, in my judgment, to the present enquiry, that the 

 practical construction phaced upon the Treaties of 1824 and 1825 by the 

 parties to them, from the day of their date down to the time of the 

 cession, and down to the present time, is exactly in accordance with 

 what we say the true reading of the Treaty is, and the true understand- 

 ing of the parties was. How can it be that if the Treaty of 1824 was 

 understood as conveying to the United States these rights of trading, 

 and of fishing, that in 1882 Eussia should put forth such an order as I 

 have just read, and how can it be that the United States would submit 

 to it and permit their vessels to be captured; because if the Treaty of 

 1824 gives the rights which are claimed to the United States, then the 

 issue of the order of 1882 was a gross infringement of the Treaty, and 

 of the rights of the United States under the Treaty. It is not to be 

 presumed that Eussia would have attempted it, and still less is it to be 

 presumed that the United States would have submitted to it; and that 

 bears upon this great leading fact that from the time of the discovery 

 of these islands down to 1807, when they were ceded to the United 

 States, the possession and occupation by Eussia of the seal and fur 

 industry business was not only asserted, but was actually maintained; 

 and not a seal, as far as we learn in the exhaustive examination of this 

 case, was ever killed in those waters except by the permission and under 

 the regulations of the Eussian Government. So that the question 

 which Mr. Blaine puts in this correspondence, in letters that have been 

 read, is one that has not received an answer from my learned friends, 

 and, I respectfully insist, cannot be answered. How comes it to pass 

 that the Canadian vessels at this late i^eriod have acquired a right as 

 against the interest of the United States, in that seal herd, which never 

 was asserted or claimed by anybody so long as the Eussian Government 

 remained. "You will remember. Sir, without wearying you with more 

 reading on this tiresome branch of the case, that about 1840 a question 

 arose. The Eussian American Company addressed its Government on 

 the subject of whaling vessels that came in there, and asked the Gov- 

 ernment to interfere; and something is cited from Bancroft, by the 

 other side, to the effect that the spirit of the Treaty of 1825, between 

 Great Britain and America, might be against it. It does not touch the 

 fur animals, but when you inirsue the author they cite, Bancroft, you 

 will find this: 



The Government at length referred the matter to a committee composed of offi- 

 cials of the navy department, who reported that the cost of fitting out a cnnser 

 for the protection of Behring Sea against foreign whalors would be 200,000 roubles 

 in silver and the cost of maintaining such a craft 85,000 roubles a year. To this a 

 recommendation was added that, if the company were willing to assume the expendi- 

 ture, a cruiser should at once be placed at their disi)Osal. 



So that the failure, according to Bancroft, to protect Bchring Sea, 

 even against wlialer-s, which is totally different Irom the question we 

 are upon, was put upon the ground that the interest of the Comi)any 

 in it did not justify the expense that would be put upon them of fitting 

 out the cruiser for the purpose. 

 BS, PT XV 13 



