92 ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR RICHARD WEBSTER, Q. C. M. P. 



fact officially), was doing otherwise than giving you the earliest friendly 

 notice, according to our view, that a mistake had been made in the 

 inference you attempted to ])ut on certain acts in your argument 

 which for the first time he told us we saw when that argument was 

 presented. 



Mr, Carter. — We take a wholly different view. 



The President. — I think we should maintain a distinction between 

 documents which are j)ublic. If you mejition that which is merely 

 mentioning any fact or statement from a public paper, it is for us to 

 consider the importance that should be attached to it; but as to other 

 documents not public which are altogether i^rivate or almost private — 

 that are official and confidential, at any rate, communication from your 

 government to Counsel, I think we must reserve our opinion on that, 

 and upon the use you may personally be going to make of them, until 

 those documents or communications have been communicated to your 

 friends on the other side and inspected by them. 



Sir Richard Weester. — I entirely agree if I maybe allowed to 

 say so; I only desire to point out that the communication to the Attor- 

 ney General was only the fact of the telegram being receired or com- 

 munication being received officially from Russia — just in the same man- 

 ner as this book that I hold uj) — although it has not become a Parlia- 

 mentary x^aper. But I follow you. Sir, in what you say, and I will take 

 care that as far as possible it shall not rest upon that statement of the 

 Attorney General or any document which is not equally at the disposal 

 of my friends. There will be ample time. The distinction you have 

 drawn is of course a most imi)ortant one, Sir, and one which at any rate 

 I should not have overlooked, but I again point out that it is in order 

 to remove a false impression not established by what I may call, shortly, 

 the facts of the case. 



The President. — We have perfect faith in your intention. 



Mr. Phelps. — My friend should understand now that I shall main- 

 tain in the close of this argument, the absolute correctness of every 

 thing that is there said in respect of the action of Russia; and, not the 

 least, from the very correspondence that we have permitted them to 

 introduce to-day. 



Sir Richard Webster. I am perfectly willing that my friend. 



The President. — I think we had better let Mr. Phelps argue tha 

 in his turn. 



Sir Richard Webster. — I was about to make that observation. I 

 cannot preclude my friend Mr. Phelps from arguing every thing; I have 

 given him the fullest materials uj^on which to support his contention if 

 he can. 



j^ow, Sir, when you were good enough to make that observation to 

 me, I was about to argue, and to argue for a very short time as briefly 

 as I possibly can, the question of jurisdiction. 



Senator Morgan. — Before you proceed to that, is this agreement of 

 Russia to pay damages part of the modus vivendif 



Sir Richard Webster. — ISTo, quite independent — it is kept inde- 

 pendent by both. It is stated in terms that the modus vivendi is to 

 have no operation on the seizures last year which were to be governed 

 by the ordinary principles of International law. 



It is uuderstood that the present Agreement relates solely to the year 1893. It has 

 consequently no retroactive force or eifect — more especially as regards the British 

 vessels previously seized by Russian cruizers. 



Neither Great Britain nor Russia wished or intended to put that as 

 operating with regard to those seizures — they desired that that should 

 be outside. May I be x^ermitted to remind you again that the question 



