ORAL ARGUMENT OP HON. EDWARD J. PHELPS. 283 



its i)ai't has fully committoil himself in advauco on all the questions which are to be 

 sulniiitted to liiiii for iii\ esti.i;atiou and det'isiou. 



I am further informed that the other gentleman named in your note had previons 

 to this selection made puhlic his views on the subject, and that very recently ho has 

 announcetl in an address to his Parliamentary constituents that the result of the 

 iuvestijiatiou of this Commission and the proposed Arbitration would be in favor of 

 his (Toverument. 



I trust, however, that these circumstances will not impair the candid and impar- 

 tial investigation and determination which was the object had in view in the crea- 

 tion of the Commission, and that the result of its labors may greatly promote an 

 equitable and mutually satisfactory adjustment of the questions at issue. 



Now there is the first point in which Great Britain swerv^ed away 

 from what before iiad been its nniforni and honourable and most proper 

 and appropriate langnaoe in respect of the regulation of this matter, if 

 it was to be reuulate(i by convention, and ]nitting aside as was proposed 

 by Mr. Bayard and M\\ Blaine the discussion of any question of right — 

 the first thing' they did was to select gentlemen — gentlemen of high 

 respectability, competent, no doubt, in (•\ ery respect to be selected, but 

 men — one of whom, at least, and the other to a considerable extent were 

 comi)letely committed beforehand. I want to refer — because we cannot 

 consider this question of Kegulations intelligently, unless Ave ignore 

 altogether the work of the Commissioners that were ap])ointed under 

 the Treaty for the very purpose of helping the Tribunal on this sub- 

 ject — we cannot discuss this question without considering the position 

 in which these gentlemen stood. This is a note by one of these Commis- 

 sioners, Mr. George Dawson, Assistant Director of the geological sur- 

 vey of Canada, and it is to be found in the 3rd volume of the British 

 Appendix on page 450. 



I cannot read all that because there are three full ])ages of this large 

 volume and it is dated March 5th 1890 — before their ai)pointment. It is 

 from beginning to end a strong, ingenious and very earnest argument 

 in favour of pelagic sealing and against any kind of Regulations that 

 should not provide for and protect it. Some of the passages are very 

 strong. Take this instance; and the Tribunal will understand I am 

 only reading detached passages. 



If, indeed, the whole sweep of the Pacific Ocean north of the Equator was domi- 

 nated and effectively controlled by the United States, something might be said in 

 favour of some such mode of ju'oteetion from a commercial point of view, but in the 

 actual circumstances the results would be so entirely in favour of the United States, 

 and so completely opposed to the iiiterests and natural rights of citizens of all otlier 

 countries, that it is preposterous to suppose that such a mode of protection of these 

 animals can be maintained. 



Tie argues the property question at considerable length and has strong 

 opinions upon that subject. Then at page 452 he goes on to say: 



The protection of fur-seals from extermination has from time to time been spe- 

 ciously advanced as a sufficient reason for extraordinary dejiartures from the respect 

 usually ])aid to private property and to international rights; l)ut any protection 

 based on the lease of the breeding-ground of these animals as y)laces of slaughter, 

 and an attemj)t to preserve the seals when at large and spread over the ocean, as 

 they are during the greater part of each year, is unfair in its operation, unsound in 

 principle, and impracticable in enforcement. 



Then he discusses lower down the impracticability of killing seals in 

 the open sea and goes on to propose that the killing should be largely 

 limited on the Islands and that in<leed if it could be done the i)roper 

 way would be to stop all the killing on the Islands. He says: 



The circumstances that the females fur-seal becomes pregnant within a few days 

 after the birth ot its young, and that the ))eriod of gestation is nearly twelve months, 

 with the fact that the skins are at all times lit for marlvet (thougii for a few weeks, 

 extending from the middle of August to the end of Se^jtember, during the progress 



