ORAL ARGUMENT OF CHRISTOPHER ROBINSON, Q. C. 307 



over any other waters. Is it possible that this article was intended to 

 provide, without the slightest limit, for every other water in the world, 

 when you recollect how the provision is made, and as a substitution for 

 what rights it was intended to be used'? 



Then again, if the construction is to be as my learned friends con- 

 tend, you are met with this difficulty. Outside of Behring Sea, if we 

 are right, it is imi)ossible to say whether the seals you meet with are 

 seals which habitually resort to this side of Behring Sea or the other. 

 No question, so far as I have observed, has ever arisen between us with 

 regard to the fur seals in any part of Behring Sea except that eastern 

 part the jurisdiction of which has been transierred to the United 

 States. There never has been a question between us as to the other 

 part. Kobody will pretend that they ever claimed any special right of 

 protection for the seals which resoit to the Commander Islands. 



It has never been thought of and never spoken of. When you get 

 south of the Aleutian Islands and you find a seal — I am not going back 

 into details or into eviden(;e — but it our evidence is to be believed it is 

 impossible to say whether that is or is not a seal which habitually 

 resorts to the Pribilof Islands. He habitually resorts to the Pribilof 

 Islands or to the Commander Islands, or it may be some other place. 

 He may go to the Commander Islands or he may go to the Pribilof 

 Islands. He may go to them one year or another, or may be not for 

 two or three years. As we all know, there are some seals which do not 

 go there from their first year to their tliird. Is the construction claimed 

 a reasonable one"? Was it ever intended to claim regulations which 

 would impose upon us the duty of protecting seals coming from the 

 western part of Behring Sea and resorting to the Commander Islands! 

 If not, it is impossible, as we submit, under the evidence, to extend those 

 regulations beyond Behring Sea without imposing upon us that duty. 



Again, I think there are other considerations, and strong considera- 

 tions I venture to submit, which tend to support the same construction. 

 The treaty reads ''If the determination of the foregoing questions as 

 to the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States shall leave the sub- 

 ject in such position that the concurrence of Great Britain is necessary 

 to the establishment of Regulations". Therefore that seems to imply 

 that the questions of right may be so decided that the concurrence of 

 Great Britain shall not be necessary. But outside of Behring Sea the 

 concurrence of Great Britain always was and must be necessary. There 

 nevei- has been a pretence of anything else. Inside of Behring Sea the 

 United States claim that they have exclusive jurisdiction, and that they 

 could act without the concurrence of Great Britain, but outside of Beh- 

 ring Sea no such claim has ever been advanced. That hypothesis there- 

 fore could have no application in the mind of the person who framed 

 those questions at the time they were framed, and it could have no 

 ap])lication, and no intended application, to anything but Behring Sea, 

 because it is only if the concuri'cnce of Great Britain is necessary that 

 regulations shall be made. But there was no "if" about it outside of 

 Behring Sea. That hypothesis and that "if" and that condition was 

 utterly meaningless and useless and inapplicable as regards anything 

 but Behring Sea; for there never was any question of being able to 

 make regulations outside without the concurrence of Great Britain. 

 It was no,t "if" the concurrence was necessary, but as a matter of fact 

 her concurrence under all circnmstances was necessary. 



Now then what is the reasonable construction of those words, look- 

 ing back, as I am always looking back, at the history of this thing 

 from the beginning, connected as it is with and confined to the area of 



