THIRTY-SEVENTH DAY, JUNE 13™, 1893. 



The President. — Sir RicLard, we sliall be pleased, if you are ready, 

 ?to hear you. 



Sir EiCHARD Webster. — Mr. President, I am ixiinfully conscious of 

 ^the time that our case has occupied, and of the extent to which we have 

 ■tresi^assed upon the attention of this Tribunal, but I trust that upon 

 i:his part of the case I shall be able to give the Arbitrators some sub- 

 .:stautial assistance at any rate in forming a judgment as to the true 

 ?facts of the case. It is quite imijossible to attempt to touch every point 

 tthat is referred to in these papers; so to attempt would be to defeat, to 

 :a large extent, one's object. I do not pretend that this part of the case 

 ^;an be put in the sam.e way, as the arguments on the question of right. 

 'These are questions of fact upon which there is counter evidence ui)on 

 ?botli sides. It will be my duty as fairly as I can, to put before you the 

 (material evidence bearing upon the questions of fact which ought, we 

 submit, to affect your minds in deciding this question of Eegulations. 

 I will endeavour to exhaust each point as I pass it by so as to curtail 

 within the shortest possible limits, the time that I must ask you to be 

 good enough to devote in listening to my observations. It will be con- 

 venient if I dispose once and for all of this Russian question. It has 

 a bearing upon Regulations, it has an indirect bearing upon the (|ues- 

 tiou of property which I discussed some days ago. If I take it at once 

 as I said, once and for all, I shall clear it away from the minds of the 

 Tribunal and be able to refer to the incident afterwards without actu- 

 ally referring to the papers. You will remember. Sir that in the coun- 

 ter case of the United States at page 29 the United States say: 



In making this assertion the United States believe they are fully sustained by 

 Russia's action during the summer of 1892. In that year sealing vessels assembled 

 in great numbers about the Commander Islands and killed fur-seals in the extra 

 territorial waters surrounding this group. Russia anticipating that her seal herd 

 would be thus preyed upon, had dispatched to those waters in the early part of the 

 season two cruisers, which seized six vessels, five of them British anil one of them 

 American, carrying them in from a distance greater than three miles from any land. 



Now, Mr. President, I ought to mention that Mr. Coudert, or Mr. 

 Carter in his argument referred to the Russiaii action, as indicating an 

 intention by Russia, to make the same kind of claims as those which 

 w ere made by the United States. We were therefore in a somewhat dif- 

 ficult position — that whatever our owu knowledge might be with regard 

 to the matter we were not in a position to state it because as you will 

 well know as long as matters form partmerely of diplomatic negociations, 

 is it not considered that they should be brought in any way into the 

 arena of public discussion; but by the paper of which my friends have 

 a copy — the Parliamentary paper which was presented to the House of 

 Commons and House of Lords last week — that restriction upon our 

 utterances is removed and I am in a position, as the Attorney General 

 told you, to put before you the simple facts with reference to the mat- 

 ter in the briefest possible way. 



Mr. President, two questions were involved — one the seizure of five 

 or six British vessels in the year 1892, the other a question of Rcgula- 



H 

 B S, PT XIV 6 



