ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q. C. M. P. 13 



Senator Morgan. — Tlien we had access to them witliout buying 

 them. 



Sir Charles Eussell. — Yes, you did not buy the fisheries, but the 

 Alaska territory and such rights as were incident to it. 



Senator Morgan. — 1 was enquiring what Mr. Sumner said. 



Sir Charles Eussell. — Well, Mr. Sumner was a statesman, and 

 he nowbere says that you bought the tislieries in the open seas. 



Senator Morgan. — I do not know why he alluded to the subject, 

 unless he attached some value to the purchase of Alaska. 

 735 Sir Charles Eussell. — Obviously, but what he was saying 



was this: Here is a great territory, Alaska, purchased by us, 

 with a great sea-board, opening upon an ocean rich in all those things 

 that the sea contains for the benefit of mankind — fish of various kinds: 

 opening therefore to our increasing population new avenues of industry, 

 new opportunities of enterprise and new fields of commerce. 



But it never entered the mind of Mr. Sumner to allege that, in pur- 

 chasing Alaska, he was purchasing the property in tbe fish in the sea, 

 or, indeed, in any of these things that I have enumerated; and he will 

 not be found to have said anything of that kind; there was no idea 

 that they were purchasing the exclusive rights of fishing in the open 

 waters of the ocean; and especially there was no idea that they were 

 buying in consideration of the value which the territory derived from 

 the fact that furseals resorted there, as 1 will now proceed to show 

 very clearly. 



In 187G, a Committee of Ways and Means was appointed by the 

 House of Eepresentatives. And a resolution of the House was referred 

 to it directing an investigation into certain matters relating to the lease 

 by the United States Government to the Alaska Commercial Company, 

 and this is the Ee])()rt of that Conimittee of Ways and Means: (it is 

 referred to on page 70 of the British Counter-Case). 



When the proposition to purchase the Alaska territory from Russia was Lelore 

 Congress, the opposition to it was very mncli based on the alleged barrenness and 

 wortblessuess of tbe territory to be acquired. It was supposed that tbongb there 

 might be many political reasons for this addition to the American Pacific posaes- 

 sions, there were not commercial or revenue .idvantages. Tlie value of those seal 

 islands nau not considered at all. Bussia liad derired but little revenue from them, indeed 

 a Slim not sufficient to pay the contingent expenses of maintaining the'offieial authority, — 

 Under our system, however, we have a very different result. 



And, on the same page 70, you will find, Mr. President, an extract 

 from, I think, the most authoritative book on the history of Alaska, I 

 mean, Mr. Bancroft's, in whicli he refers to a Committee of apparently 

 a similar kind which was appointed in 18(58. There he says: 



The motives which led the United States Government to purchase them (Russia's 

 American possessions) are thus stated in a report of the Committee on Foreign 

 Affairs, publislied 18th May, 1868. They were, iirst 



and this answers, if I may respectfully say so. Senator Morgan's ques- 

 tion as to what were the objects of the purchase. — 



the laudable desire of citizens of the Pacific coast to share in the prolific fisheries 

 of the oceans, seas, bays and rivers of the Western World, the refusal of Russia to 

 renew the Russia-American Fur Comi»any in 1866; the friendship of Russia for the 

 United States; the necessity of preventing the transfer, by any possible chance, of 

 the north-west coast of America to an unfriendly Power; the creation of new indus- 

 trial interests on the Pacific necessary to the snjiremacy of our empire on the sea 

 and land; and finally, to facilitate and secure the advantagesof an unlimited Ameri- 

 can commerce with the friendly Powers of Japan and China. 



