304 ORAL ARGUMENT OF CHRISTOPHER ROBINSON, Q. C. 



That was the position they took, as I shall be able to shew you in a 

 few moments. Kow they say in their argument: 



We are entitled to Regulations even if you give us the property 

 rights or the right of i)rotectiou, for the right of i)rotection Avhich you 

 may give us, or the right of property which you find to be in us, may 

 not be sufficient to enable us efticiently to i)rotect the seals, and there- 

 fore you must add to Award o± Property or Property rights some Regu- 

 lations which will enable us to protect,them efficiently. 



Now that, so far as we know, is an entirely new argument, advanced 

 for the first time in the United States written Argument; and not only 

 that, but we think that the opinion of both parties up to that time has 

 been expressed in a directly opposite sense — that is to say, that the 

 claim was to Regulations in substitution for rights. Our understand- 

 ing always was : If you own these seals or if you have a right of pro- 

 tection of these seals, that will be suificient for you; yon cannot want 

 Regulations in addition to that; and we never tliought they were claim- 

 ing such Regulations. Now let me see whether I have ground or not 

 for saying that we were justified in that belief! 



In other words, to put it differently, we had always thought that 

 those words, "the determination of the foregoing questions as to the 

 exclusive jurisdiction of the United States being such as to require the 

 establishment of regulations", meant the determination of those ques- 

 tions in favor of Great Britain. That was the idea that we had. '• It 

 the determination of the foregoing questions as to tlie exclusive juris- 

 diction of the United States is necessary to the establishment of Regu- 

 lations" we believed was never intended to mean anything else, and 

 was never thought to mean anything else, until the time I have spokeu 

 of, than the determination of those questions in favor of Great Britain. 



Let me see whether that was not also the understanding of the i)ar- 

 ties. In the first place, I find a letter from Lord Salisbury of the 21st 

 of February 1891. I have not taken tlie reference to that, which I 

 ought to have done. However, it is of no consequence, I have written 

 down what he said. I can find the reference in a moment. 



Mr. Justice Harlan. — It is in the United States, Appendix, Volume 

 I, page 290, 



Mr. Robinson. — I may just as well take it from that, though I have 

 the reference in another place. I read from page 294, the last paragraph 

 but one from the bottom. Lord Salisbury there says. 



The sixth question, which deals with the issues that will arise in case the con- 

 troversy should be decided ia favor of Great Britain, would perhaps more fitly form 

 the substance of a separate reference. 



The sixth question then, as you know, has now become article VII. 

 When these questions were originally proposed by Mr. Blaine, they 

 were in the form of six questions, and what was then the sixth question 

 is now Article VII. 



So there was Lord Salisbury writing to Sir Julian Pauncefote, asking 

 him to read that dispatch to Mr. Blaine, and putting this construction 

 upon that sixth question, which is the construction 1 have indicated. 



Then I find that that construction is repeated by Lord Salisbury in 

 his instructions to the British Commissioners, wliicii are dated the loth 

 of January, 1892, at page VII of the iireliminary pages to the British 

 Commissioners' Report. There he says: 



The Regulations which the Commissioners may recommend for adoption within the 

 respective jurisdictions of the two countries, will of course be mntter for the con- 

 sideration of tlie respcftive govcninieiits, \v]iil(; tlio licgulatiiiiis aiiecting waters 

 outside the territorial limits will have to be considered under clause six of the 



