ORAL ARGUM?:NT of CHRISTOPHER ROBINSON, Q. C. 315 



It is assured that pelagic sealing" is a lawful occupation, and that the 

 rights upon which they chxini to stand in consequence of its unlawful 

 character are found not to exist. We, in following pelagic sealing, are 

 following a lawful occupation. It would be absurd, and so unreasonable 

 as not to bear argument at all, to say that that riglit is to be abolislied 

 in order to enable those who own the Islands to kill wastefully on the 

 Islands. It cannot be to ])roteetthe seal race against their immoderate 

 or excessive kilhng — that is plain. What then can it he.l It cannot 

 be predicated upon anything except upon a reasonable exercise of their 

 rights upon the Islands. That is demonstrable to my ap])rehension as 

 a mathematical proposition. If my learned friends are right in saying: 



" You have nothing to say as to the Islands at all, with regard to our 

 management or the number we kill. 



That is none of your business"; — if they are right in that, and if they 

 are entitled to say. 



"We will kill on the Islands every seal the whole race can spare 

 stand." Then there was no obje(;t in this Arbitration, because pelagic 

 sealing must be abolished — that is ])lain. It is not a question of argu- 

 ment — there is no denying it. If that be so the two Powers that have 

 come together to ask you to make Eegulations did not know what they 

 were about, for there were not any Regulations to consider ex hypothesi. 

 If they are entitled to kill every seal that can be spared ujion the 

 Islands, there is only one Kegulation that will put a stop to the Eventual 

 extermination, and that is to say that no one else shall kill any. 



It is i^erfectly unreasonable to suppose that that could have been the 

 regulation intended if pelagic sealing be a lawful occup;.tion and we 

 are exercising a lawful right. You understand I hope what I mean by 

 that. I do not wish to reiterate or repeat it, but sometimes if you put 

 proi)Ositions in a short way they are not clearly appreciated by those 

 to whom they are addressed, and I should be therefore much obliged to 

 the Tribunal if they would say that they do not think I have made any 

 particular point clear. I know what I have in my own mind — I know 

 wdiat I mean without thinking much of it — but sometimes another mind 

 does not understand what is meant when it is suggested perhaps in a 

 way that has not appeared to that mind before. But this is clear 

 beyond all doubt or question. If they are entitled to say, as they do 

 say in fact — "what we do on the Islands and the number of seals that 

 we kill on the islands is none of your business, self-interest will guide 

 us in that" — self-interest will prompt them to take every seal of the 

 herd that can be spared in their belief. If they are entitled to do this 

 there is no question of regulations; every seal killed after that tends so 

 far to extermination — that is to say, that is more than should be killed, 

 und, of course, every other killing ought to be put down. 



Now on the assumption of equal rights, the suggestion of this proposi- 

 tion seems to answer it. You are to try and make such regulations as seem 

 to you to be reasonable and proper upon the hypothesis and assumption 

 of equal rights. The regulations which they contend for are simply regu- 

 lations to enable their right to prevail wholly over all other rights, which 

 can never be right — and to enable their right to prevail over others 

 w^hether they exercise their right reasonably or excessively. There can 

 be no sense in that. We are just as well without the right, if our right 

 is to be wholly subordinate to the right of others, and to be abolished 

 to enable them to exercise their right to the utmost. We had better 

 not have had it, and we should have been saved all the trouble and 

 expense of this reference. Our object in coming to the Tribunal is to 

 contrive reasonable regulations for the exercise of our mutual rights, 



