ORAL ARGUMENT OF CHRISTOPHER ROBINSON, Q. C. 311 



that hypothesis, namely if the concurrence of Great Britain slionld be 

 necessary, is meaningless and useless, except as applied to Behring Sea, 

 it has no application and could not be intended. In the next place, we 

 have this singular peculiarity: here are two persons, parties or Powers, 

 differing and claiming certain rights — and claiming, in the event of 

 those rights, which is the substantial thing, being denied to them and 

 found not to belong to them, certain Regidations. We have the fact, 

 that it is claimed, as the fair construction of a Treaty to settle those 

 rights and Eegulations, that they are better off" if they get Regulations 

 than if they get rights: in other words, that the Eegulations, if they 

 are found not to have pro])erty, may be to them much more effectual 

 than if they succeeded on the question of pro])erty and got it. I wish 

 the Tribunal to understand the tirst point that as to the concurrence; 

 it is that outside Behring Sea, the concurrence of Great Britain must 

 be necessary, there could not be an "if" about it or any hypothesis 

 about it; but the very way of putting this question seems to show that 

 the question may be so decided that the concurrence of Great Britain 

 is not necessary. There was not a pretence there could be regulations 

 outside of Behring Sea without her concurrence; and that condition 

 attached to the 7th clause either related to Behring Sea or meant noth- 

 ing, or had nothing to apply to. 



1 do not know that I can put it stronger, and the last thing I desire 

 is, to waste time in useless repetition. It is worth while, perhaps, 

 without reading dccuments, because it is most material, in connection 

 with this question, to consider the history of that clause 7. All the 

 documents relating to it will be found, I think, cited in the argument 

 of the Attorney General, at the ])ages I have read, and 1 have no dis- 

 position to read them or refer to them again ; but it is very singular to 

 see how the difference has arisen, between its form as first i)roi)()sed 

 and as it now Stands upon which difference this whole question depends, 

 and upon which, and upon which alone, my learned friends have any 

 ground to contend they can go beyond Behring Sea. If you remem- 

 ber, as I have no doubt you do — I have been through them so often 

 that I know them almost by heart — those first six questions were pro- 

 posed by Mr. Blaine in his well known despatch of the 17th December, 



1890. The Gth question is that which has now become the Vllth Article 

 in the Treaty. As first proposed by him on the 17th of December it 

 unquestionably was confined to Behring Sea, and expressly confined to 

 Behring Sea. No reading of it can make it apply beyond Behring Sea, 

 or to any other water. It will be found to be beyond question or doubt 

 on looking at it. When that was sent to Lord Salisbury, while he 

 accepted the first and second questions, and objected to the fourth and 

 fifth on other grounds which are quite immaterial here, he objected to 

 the sixth question. His ground then simply was that it would more 

 properly form the subject of a separate reference, but he did not object 

 to it on any other ground at that time. Mr. Blaine on the 14th April, 



1891, said that as Lord Salisbury objected not to the form of the ques- 

 tion, but simply to the mode of i)rocedure, that he had no objection to 

 its form, and that it was accepted, and he repeated it again in the same 

 form. All those letters are to be found following each other. The first 

 I have stated is in the same volume of the Appendix to the United 

 States Case, volume I, page 28G. Then at pages 290 and 294, when 

 Lord Salisbury objected to it on that ground, it was proposed again by 

 Mr. Blaine on the 14th Ajtril 1891, at page 295. Then, curiously enough, 

 it was left from April until June, and in June you will fiad that Mr. 



