ORAL ARGUMENT OF CHRISTOPHER ROBINSON, Q. C. 319 



of property rigiits alone, but all the way through the case — my learned 

 friends have attributed to us a desire to exterminate this race, a desire, 

 as they say, to prev'ent them from conferring on mankind the blessings 

 of sealskins. IJcally, now tliat we have a share in this property, it 

 would seem to be useless to discuss it on that ground. 



The people who are interested in reality in this industry are the 

 people who are making their living out of it, and the people whose 

 capital is invested in it. The world i)ractically neither care anything 

 about it, nor have any practical interest in it. If to-morrow, for instance, 

 those pearl fisheries of Ceylon, that we ha\e heard so much about, were 

 to be destroyed, I should sympathise very much with the i)eople, if 

 there is a large number of them, or whether the number be large or 

 small, who have made their living out of it; but as to talking about the 

 blessings of pearls to mankind, and sympathising with those people 

 who have to mix their diamonds with pearls or to wear their diamonds 

 alone without pearls, or do without pearls, tlie thing is absolutely absurd. 

 Whatever evils may be in store for the human race in the future, the 

 scarcity of sealskins is about the most extraordinary and fantastic fear 

 for the mind of anybody to be directed to. 



We are discussing this (piestion then simply as persons jointly inter- 

 ested in an industry, which we both wish to have protected, or rather, 

 the foundation of which we both wish to have protected, by reasonable 

 regulations. 



The first difficulty which strikes one in that asi)ect — at all events, 

 which strikes me — is that tuiiiing again to the treaty, and turning to 

 the knowledge which we have, and the ordy knowledge which we are 

 ])ermitted to have, on the subject, I question very much whether the 

 Tribunal is in the position which tliey were intended by the Treaty to 

 be in. If you look at Article 7, it is said that they are to determine 

 what regulations are to be made, " and to aid them in that determina- 

 tion, the report of a Joint Commission, to be appointed by the Respec- 

 tive Governments, shall be laid before them." Let me ask the members 

 of this Tribunal, have you got the aid that the Treaty provides? You 

 have got a joint comnussion which tells you nothing. You have got 

 two separate commissions which contradict each other, and differ from 

 each other in almost every essential particular. 



Is that an exaggeration of tlie truth? I quite understand what was 

 intended and wliat was ex])ected by both powers. It was expected, 

 though expected without any reasonable ground, and expected in our 

 joint ignorance of the whole subject, that when we each sent up scien- 

 tific commissioners to investigate and report upon this subject, there 

 would be found no difference as to their views of seal life; but as a 

 matter of fact we find these gentlemen going up, and I will assume now, 

 notwithstandhig all my learned friends have said, desiring to ascertaiu 

 the truth. We find them conung back, differing about the most essen- 

 tial particulars; and these two re[)orts, so different, are now handed to 

 this Tribunal under the Treaty as what they were intended to have to 

 aid them in determining the regulations. Have you got the aid the 

 Treaty provides for! The bearing of that is simply this: that it leads 

 one to consider morie carefully what regulations, under the present state 

 of things, and with the knowledge now existing, is it reasonable and 

 right or desirable to make; and that is a question which is not in the 

 interest of either one side or the other exclusively. It is a question to 

 be decided in the interest of both sides. 



Lot us see for a nionuMit, in that view, what are really the fiu'ts as to 

 which there is a difference of oi)inion or as to which very little indeed is 



