60 ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q. C. M. P. 



action both on tiie side of Great Britain and the United States to give 

 effect to it, I should like to know what would have been the scheme 

 which the United States would have put forward if its (jlaim of terri- 

 torial jurisdiction, its claim of property in the individuals and in the 

 fur-seals collectively had been established as clearly as it is, I sulunit, 

 now established to be non-existent? Suppose, when these first five 

 questions had been framed, Great Britain had chosen to say, "It is a 

 remote region; it is not a matter of much consequence to us. The 

 thing we feel most about is this assertion of right upon the high seas 

 to seize and search the ships of our nationals; but suitable reparation 

 being made for that in the past, we care not about it in the future; 

 by all means have your assertion in relation to Behring Sea," — those 

 assertions were confined to Behring Sea, — and yet absolutely the result 

 sought to be pointed at by this so-called suggestion for Kegulations is 

 infinitely worse to Great Britain than if she had never challenged the 

 right which the United States has claimed at all. 



Mr. President, I cannot seriously consider this scheme. It is selfish ; it 

 is one sided; it is inequitable; it is unworkable, and it is entirely framed 

 in oblivion of the fact, if fact it be, as we submit it is, that we have 

 established that the United States liave in no form in which they have 

 ventured to put it forward any legal rights in this matter at all, except 

 the rights belonging to their territorial ownership, and those rights only. 



Now, Mr. President, I turn to the suggestion which we think it right 

 to offer, which at least, I hope the Tribunal will think, we have con- 

 sidered in a serious, in an anxious, in an equitable spirit, and with the 

 desire to do something to assist this Tribunal in arriving at a just and, 

 at the same time, a practical conclusion in this matter. 



The first suggestion which we submit to this Tribunal is, assuming 

 that we are right that Regulations and not prohibition is the question, 

 that in future all vessels engaged in pelagic sealing, belonging either to 

 Great Britain or the United States, shall be permitted to do so only on 

 condition of obtaining a license and carrying a distinctive flag; that is 

 to say, that no ship belonging to a British national shall be allowed at 

 the mere will and pleasure of its owner to engage in pelagic sealing, and 

 that the same shall apply to the ships owned by the citizens of the United 

 States, that as a condition of their right to engage in pelagic sealing at 

 all, they shall be furnished with and shall obtain a license and bear a 

 distinctive flag. This presents no difficulty and no comphcation. There 

 are four ports, and four ports only, belonging respectively to the United 

 States and Great Britain, from which the pelagic sealers set forth. 

 Those are San Francisco, Port Townsend, Vancouver, and Victoria; and 

 there can be, therefore, no difficulty in providing a scheme by which 

 there could be at each of these ports a Licensing Authority to license 

 sealers to pursue pelagic sealing. I put that in the first place for a 

 reason which I think you. Sir, will appreciate; it is that experience of 

 similar systems has shown that if you pursue that licensing system, 

 you have some guarantee for the character of the persons who are 

 licensed, and you have persons who are giving by their position and by 

 their means and by their character some guarantee that they are entitled 

 to pursue this calling. But that is not all, nor principally what is the 

 advantage. It is that once you introduce a system of licenses you con- 

 stitute automatically an effective police force. How? Because, to 

 begin with, you make the whole number of those who have licences a 

 police force upon those who have none. Those who have the privilege 

 of the license will, in their own interests, do all they can to safeguard 

 and secure it, and to see that no vessels that do not comply with the 



