ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR RICHARD WEBSTER, Q. C. M. P. 261 



lently exhibited, was to be a protection against either search or seizure. 

 When Great Britain protested that, if a fraudulent use of tlie United 

 States flag was made so that it covered the Slave Trade which was 

 recognized as unhiwful in both Countries, facilities ought to be given 

 for the search. "jSTo", said the United States, "our Hag is inviolable 

 upon the sea"; and yet, in the face of this, it is to be suggested that 

 you are to impose upon Great Britain the humiliation that you are to 

 tell Great Britain her vessels are to be seized by American cruisers and 

 taken into the nearest port. I think a little consideration might have 

 brought it to the minds of those who instruct ray learned friend that 

 such a liegulation was not a Kegulation fit to be submitted to this 

 Tribunal. But I ask the Tribunal to consider it from another point of 

 view. Will you remember the concluding words of article YIl ? 



The High Contracting Parties furthermore agree to co-operate in securing the 

 adhesion of other Powers to such Regulations. 



The Regulations are to be such that Great Britain and the United 

 States can have a reasonal)le hope of inducing other Powers to adhere 

 to them on the ground of humanity and of mutual self-interest and 

 some other grounds which may commend themselves; but, on the 

 hypothesis that we are discussing, there will be no such inducement 

 that can be offered. Every other national is to be excluded from seal- 

 ing over these millions of square miles, an area, as the Attorney General 

 pointed out, vastly larger than ever entered into the minds of the des- 

 potic potentates in years gone by; and I want to know how would it 

 b(f'possible to prevent the very abuse that Senator Morgan called atten- 

 tion to a moment ago that of sailing under foreign flags, a thing to be 

 deprecated by every right-minded citizen or subject, — Japan or Russia 

 to say nothing of the flags of other countries would be, of course, an 

 ample protection assuming Great Britain to be the only nation whose 

 nationals were prevented from sealing over this vast area. 



But I take leave to say on behalf of Great Britain it is not a regula- 

 tion at all. Prohibition is not Regulation, and many examples of that 

 can be given. We know with reference to the liquor traffic — we know 

 what regulating the sale and manufacture of intoxicating liquors is, 

 and we know what prohibiting them is. In no Court save in this could 

 it be possible to suggest that you are under cover of a regulation to 

 enforce an absolute and positive prohibition. Sir, the United States 

 say that they will not discuss this question of regulations at all. Noth- 

 ing will satisfy them but absolute and total prohibition over this vast 

 area. Would that promote peace? We hoped in all probability that 

 my learned friend Mr. Phelps might indicate that there was some inten- 

 tion of discussing the basis of regulations from a more moderate stand- 

 point. But no: at the invitation of my learned friend the Attorney 

 General, Mr. Phelps said he should maintain that those were their 

 rights; that by the form of regulations read by Mr. Foster, at the con- 

 clusion of the Attorney General's speech, on behalf of the United States 

 he elected to stand; and, as ptfrt of that, the right claimed by the 

 United States, for the first time for 50 years, is of searching and seizing 

 vessels of a friendly flag, in time of peace, on the high seas; taking 

 them in and condemning them in their own ports, as though they were 

 pirates, or, to use the phrase actually used in the United States argu- 

 ment, hostes humani generis. There is not a suggestion of this in the 

 Diplomatic Correspondence all through these years; no suggestion 

 made that such a proposal is to be agreed to by Great Britain, and I 

 remind you with great respect, Mr. President, that this Tribunal is 



