318 ORAL ARGUMENT OF CHRISTOPHER ROBINSON, Q. C. 



Mr. Robinson. — Yon must regulate so as to preserve the seal race. 



Senator Morgan. — Regulate to any extent, if you eveu do not pro- 

 hibit? 



Mr. Robinson. — I venture to say, and there are plenty of cases of 

 this sort, you may not, under colour of regulation, prohibit. You may 

 not pretend to regulate, and under the form of regulation prohibit. 



Senator ^Morgan. — Possil)ly under colour of a right of pelagic sealing 

 you cannot destroy. 



Mr. Robinson. — In other words, you cannot use any right or any 

 power for a different pnrpose to that for which it was given. 



A power of regulation liere does not include power to proliibit either 

 directly or indirectly. In other words, as the cases put it, it is an 

 abuse of the power, under the name of "regulation", to prescribe 

 what is an effectual proliibition. I will state a very fjimiliar instance 

 of that kind of case within my own knowledge. A municipal Corpo- 

 ration or authority having power to determine the number of taverns 

 which should exist in a certain municipality, and having hap])ened to 

 be composed of men who desired to put down taverns altogetlier. said 

 there should be only one tavern in that place, and that it should be 

 situated at the northeast corner, I thiidi it was, of the whole munici- 

 pality — practically saying there should be none. The Court said that 

 was not a proper exercise of the power; that it was given to them to 

 prescribe in reason the number of taverns that should be allowed, not 

 under color of allowing one to say there should be none. 



Our courts are full of cases of that kind. It is only an elementary 

 proposition, that you must use a power not only in form but in substance 

 for the purpose for which it was given. 



Then I proceed to the character of the regulations; and I have a few 

 words to say upon that, which to my mind, is practically the most 

 important question of all. We Lave now especially to bear in mind 

 always that we are discussing regulations as between people having 

 equal rights. I venture to say that you must go a little farther. It 

 may be difficult for my learned friends to admit us to this position now, 

 having called us criminals and pirates and everything else throughout 

 the case, to find that, instead of being criminals and pirates, we are 

 pursuing a legal occupation, and practically that they are in partner- 

 ship with us in that occupation; but we have to take that view of it. 

 If we have equal rights, I venture to ask the Tribunal, in all reason, to 

 attribute to us the possession of equal sense. I say that we are fair in 

 the propositions that we propose; and I do not put it upon any high 

 ground, that we desire to be fair, or that our motives are fair. I simply 

 say it is to our interest to be fair. 



We have a large capital invested in this business. The men who 

 have invested that capital are intelligent men. It is no object to us to 

 destroy the seal race. It would be just as much against our interest 

 to destroy these seals as it would be against the inteiest of the other 

 people who have an interest in them. We do not want to do it, not 

 that we profess to be either better or more pure than other pe()i)le, or 

 to have higher motives than other peoi)le. It is simply the ordinary 

 business motive which impels every business man not to destroy that 

 out of which he makes his living. 



Therefore the regulations which we propose are such regulations as 

 would preserve the seal race, in our interest as well as in theirs, and 

 ^vhich must preserve the seal race, or else they are no use to us any 

 more than they are of use to them, i only mention that because 

 throughout this case, from the beginning — not contined to the question 



