326 ORAL ARGUMENT OF CHRISTOPHER ROBINSON, Q. C. 



tries must take care of itself; and it is idle to say tliat you must kill 

 40,000, or 20,000, or 15,000 or 35,000, in oue year, or in proportion to 

 another industry, because you cannot do it. 



The President. — Do you say the same for land killing as for sea 

 killing? 



Mr. EoBiNSON. — Yes ; but it is a little more dififlcult, because from 

 the land the animals disappear for a portion of the year. I am glad 

 that the President has alluded to that, because my learned friends 

 attach importance to the fact that they can kill with discrimination, 

 and only kill the surplus males. But you could do the same with 

 regard to rabbits by spreading your nets, catching the rabbits, and 

 killing only the bucks. Just the same with regard to pheasants, killing 

 only cock-birds; but it has never entered into any-body's mind that 

 that would give special rights. Just the same with regard to salmon; 

 you can take them at the heads of rivers, and even mark them, or take 

 out and kill the male salmon. But nobody ever suggested that that 

 gives any exceptional or peculiar right, until it came to be argued here. 



Then, Sir, there is only one more subject on which I desire to say a 

 very few words; and that is the interest of this particular portion of 

 the Empire in this subject; namely, the Province of British Columbia. 

 The interest of it to this Province is very, vital, serious and important. 

 It is a small Province, having a population, including Indians and 

 Chinese, coast and inland, of 97,000, or, at all even to, under 100,000. 

 It is a Province, as you all know probably, which came very lately into 

 the Dominion, I think in 1871, and which has only within the last few 

 years been connected with this outer world to the East by the Canadian 

 Pacific Eailway. 



iSTow, in this industry, with this small population, of which there are 

 only 75,000 not living inland, we have employed a population of 1,083, 

 Whites and Indians, and have invested in it a capital of somewhere 

 about half a million of dollars, I think. We got last year, and I am 

 only taking that as an average, some 49,000 skins; and for them we got 

 some $600,000, for the i)rice was $12 a skin. I suppose that the 1,100 

 people interested in that industry probably represents a dependence on 

 it of 4,000 or 5,000, because they are, naturally, heads of families; and, 

 in that view, it is very important to us. But it is more vital and 

 important to us, I venture to submit, in this view; we are trying to 

 settle that outlying and distant Province with a population which must 

 be largely dependent for their living upon what they get from the deep 

 sea; and if any restriction is placed upon the freedom of the sea in that 

 part of the world which enables the idea to go abroad that the freedom 

 of the sea means one thing in British Columbia and another thing in 

 another jjart of the world, — that those pursuing their lawful occupation 

 are liable to be interfered with and hamjjered in the pursuit of their 

 industry in a way which they wouhl not be liable to elsewhere, it must 

 exercise a most deterrent effect upon the future of that Province; and 

 we feel strongly the importance of it in that way. 



The President. — Does that apply to any restriction of a close 

 season ? 



Mr. Robinson. — Do not misunderstand me. I will explain what I 

 mean; the inference I draw from that is this, and I believe it to be the 

 true test of what Regulations, as I submit with all deference, ought to 

 be made. Such Regulations only ought to be made as you would in 

 your wisdom say that we ought to have agreed to. If such Regulations 

 are made as we can explain to our people in our judgment, and the 

 judgment of reasonable men, should have been entered into by them, 



