ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR RICHARD WEBSTER, Q. C. M. P. 99 



picked out and made the subject of voluminous affidavits, without the 

 least regard to whether it was of great importance or not; and I hope 

 to concentrate the attention of the Tribunal upon the important points. 



I accept the two cardinal principles recognized by the British Com- 

 missioners in their most impartial and fair report — a report which never 

 ought to have been attacked as it has been — that no gravid female 

 ought to be killed, so far as it can reasonably be avoided, and that no 

 nursing female upon whose life of the pup depends, ought to be slaugh- 

 tered, or injured in any way. 



Those are the two principles upon which I propose to argue this ques- 

 tion of regulations. Do not let it be thought that I make those con- 

 cessions from the point of view of one course being cruel and the 

 other not. I trust that I have as strong a feeling upon the question of 

 cruelty to animals as anybody living; but I shall demonstrate, I trust, 

 before I come to the end of the argument on the question of regula- 

 tions, that the outcry, the prejudice, that has been endeavored to be 

 imported into this case from the point of view of cruelty, the exagger- 

 ated color which has been given to incidents that do occur or have 

 occurred in the past, is wholly unjustifiable and unwarranted, and that 

 when you look at the real facts, we have nothing- to fear from an exami- 

 nation of this case from the point of view of cruelt3\ 1 merely men- 

 tioned that. Sir, that you may not think that I am shrinking from any 

 onus or burden that may rest upon me in enunciating these propositions. 

 1 do not enunciate them upon any consideration from the point of view 

 of cruelty. I look ui)on them, so far as a counsel may look upon them, 

 in the point of view of what ought to be provided. 



It seems to me that upon the simj)le principle that has governed and 

 controlled the game laws of all civilized people, the killing of a female 

 which is about to bring forth its young, or upon whose life the lives of 

 the young are dependent, is a matter which no Tribunal would endorse 

 by recommendation, and that therefore the contrary of that what would 

 commend itself to the mind of this Tribunal. 



From that point of view. Sir, what do I propose to establish? I pro- 

 pose to establish on testimony quite independent of any rei)ort which 

 has been disclosed to us during the course of these proceedings; — 

 although I shall not hesitate to make plain what has been the conduct 

 of the United States in connection with Elliott's report — I propose to 

 establish upon our evidence which was obtained long before we had 

 seen or knew of the contents of Mr. Elliott's report, the following pro- 

 positions: that the thick zone of seals is near the islands; that is to 

 say that the zone in which the seals ought to be preserved by their 

 numbers, and ought to be left undisturbed, is to be found near the 

 islands; that outside a zone of twenty miles, the seals are compara- 

 tively sparse, that is to say, as compared with the numbers that are 

 inside the twenty miles, very sparse indeed; but that outside the zone 

 of twenty miles, they become so sparse that they may be taken to be 

 scattered seals, as distinguished from what I may call numerous, or 

 seals in large numbers; and in that connection I wish to submit to the 

 Tribunal that a zone of thirty miles, for reasons which I shall call atten- 

 tion to upon the evidence, being the same distance which has been, as 

 you know, already the subject of negotiation between Russia and Great 

 Britain, gives a margin of very great safety. Add to that the obser- 

 vation already made by my learned leader, that all these zones have 

 attached to them, ex necessitate, another margin which may be \n\t at 

 twenty-five to fifty per cent, due to the absolute necessity of the per- 

 sons who have to respect the zones not tresx)assing within them. 



