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



only making for tlie parties the a^Teement which, according to the 

 judgment of the Tribunal, they ought to liave made for themselves. 

 Could any body suggest in fairness, with any lingering feeling that 

 there ought to be in the breast of the United States towards the Old 

 Country, that the degrading prohibition, with reference to the right of 

 seizure and search by the national ships of the United States, should 

 be imposed on Creat Britain in the interest of the preservation of seal 

 life, no necessity for such a thing having been shown, and it being 

 foreign to any reasoiuible scheme that has hitherto been suggested. 



Sir, I hope, at any rate, difficult as my task may have been, and ])er- 

 formed, without appreciating, i)ossibly, the full weight and proportion 

 of every point, that I have, at any rate, satistied this Tribunal that the 

 proposals of the United States are unjust in themselves, and such as 

 this Tribunal would not in any way enforce. I ask you again to believe 

 that which has been put forward so clearly by the Attorney General, 

 that we have approached this question of regulations with the honest 

 intention of assisting the Tribunal to get at the facts, with no desire 

 to injure the seal-race, or to require for the pelagic sealer anything that 

 belongs to the United States. It is a connnon interest to be protected. 

 Our rights are supposed to be declared. Those rights are to be pro- 

 tected, and to be interfered with only if it is necessary to prevent the 

 destruction of seals. If the United States desire to reserve to them- 

 selves the monopoly of destroying seals entirely, they will always 

 have that as they have the possession of these islands; but the regu- 

 lations which this Tribunal should direct, we respectfully submit, are 

 regulations based upon the fact that the rights of British subjects, and 

 of all other nations, to seal upon the high seas has been established, 

 and that those rights are only to be curtailed to the extent that is 

 necessary in order to prevent their injuriously affecting the seal race. 

 Sir, it may occur in the rest of this case that some point has escaped 

 my attention, and should such point be started we may have to ask you 

 to hear us upon it, but I ask the Tribunal to be good enough to take 

 into their consideration that which we have addressed to them on this 

 question of regulations; and we believe, at any rate, that the Award 

 of this Tribunal, or its determination, will be just and equitable, and 

 will not be couched in such a way as it must be couched if it adopted 

 the United States Begulations to destroy at one stroke the rights i)re- 

 viously declared to exist in British sealers. 



The President. — Sir Eichard, with all thanks and gratitude for 

 your very business-like and useful argument, let me put one question 

 more to you. According to what you suggest, as to the measure ot 

 police which might be adopted in your Regulations towards the sealers 

 of each nation, do you mean to say that the ])olice even during the 

 close season and within the close area, should belong exclusively to 

 the public navy of either nation concerned. 



Sir Richard Webster. — No, Sir, what 1 mean is this. I only con- 

 tend for that for which the United States universally contended up to 

 this point, and which Russia, Great Britain, France, and, as far as I 

 know, every other civilized country has always contended for success- 

 fully that if a ship is found infringing the convention by the shii)s ot 

 another nation it shall be handed over for justice to the Courts of its 

 own flag. 



The President. — You admit of its being arrested by a foreign ship 

 then. 



Sir Richard Webster. — Assuming it to have broken the Treaty 

 and assuming that Treaty to be in force with the country whose flag 

 the vessel was flying. Thus it is j)rovided that if British vessels are 



