ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR CHARLES RUSi^ELL, Q. C. M. P. 59 



would carry uo legal sanction with them, they would carry with them 

 very high moral sanction, but to give legal ettect to them, as I have 

 pointed out, legislation by the United States would be necessary — leg- 

 islation by Great Britain would be necessary and I have to point out, 

 while I am i^erfectly certain that Great Britain M'ould not fail in doing- 

 its duty in paying due respect to the Eegulations of tins Tribunal that 

 such a scheme as this would presentenormousdifficulties,in its passage 

 through an assembly whether it be the Congress of the United States 

 or through any popular Parliament. No, Mr. President, this scheme, if 

 scheme it can be called, has all the evils which could be well concen- 

 trated in any scheme to be suggested. Let me read the first and seeond 

 of these j)ropositions. First that no citizen or subject of the United 

 States or Great Britain shall in any manner kill. 



So that however discriminatingly we could kill — killing barren female 

 or only old males, — nevertheless the prohibition is absolute. Next it 

 extends over the area that I have mentioned with a ludicrous qualifica- 

 tion provided that it shall not apply to such pursuit and capture as may 

 be carried on by Indians on the Coasts of the territory either of Great 

 Britain, or the United States for their own i^ersonal use. 



We get back to that old condition of things in which whoever framed 

 this paper seems to have thought that the Indians on this coast, went 

 about half naked or with a seal-skin girtabout their loins, a state of things 

 which no longer exists at all, nor has for many, many years. They wear 

 clothes like the white men, and tall hats I am told on their Sundays and 

 holidays like the white men, the tall hat being universally admitted to 

 be a proof of advanced civilisation. But "for their own personal use"; 

 Avhich, as I understand, means if they want a skin with which to gird 

 about their loins, or for their wives or for their children, they may have 

 it; but to sell it, no; and they are to do this in vessels propelled wholly 

 by paddles. Oars, in the ordinary acceptance of the word, are not to 

 be admitted; and they are not to be manned by more than two men. 

 Two men and a boy would be fatal. Two women and a man would be 

 fatal; and all this is to be done "in the way anciently practised by such 

 Indians". Who is to fix the point of what is "ancient"'? And who is 

 to tell us what was anciently practised by such Indians'? What are the 

 sanctions that follow any breach of these regulations'? Why, that any 

 ship actually engaged in killing, or the pursuit, or capture of seals, or 

 prosecuting a voyage for that purpose, and I want to know how that 

 purpose is to be ascertained, — only by search, of course, — supposing, 

 for instance a vessel engaged in whaling; how is it to be ascertained 

 whether she may not be also contemplating a voyage for the purpose 

 of sealing, or in the days not remote when the great general fishing 

 wealth of this region may be turned to profitable account by new modes 

 of access to rapidly rising markets and as jyopulatioa grows and as the 

 means of communication increase, for the purpose of fishing; and all 

 these are to be harased over the enormous area of nearly 3,000,000 square 

 miles at the will and i:)leasure of the authorities of the United States 

 or at the caprice of those in charge of its Revenue vessels and subjected 

 to search uj^on the high seas and if found prosecuting a voyage or 

 engaged in sealing, then Avhat is to follow? The ship of Great Britain 

 is to be carried into an American port, condemned, and the men sent 

 adrift, as they were cruelly sent adrift in the case to which I have 

 drawn attention, thousands of miles and penniless, away from their 

 homes. The very contemplation of such a scheme makes one feel as I 

 feel, I must confess, indignant, especially when it is to be borne in mind 

 that this is the scheme which it must be admitted requires legislative 



