ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q. C. M. P. 19 



Sir Charles Eussell. — Mr. President, to prevent a possible 



742 misconception, I wish to refer to the Rei^ort of the Committee of 

 18(58, which has already been mentioned. It refers to the refnsal 



of the Russian Government to renew the lease to the llnssian American 

 Company. The possible misconception I wish to guard against is the 

 supposition that becanse the word "'American"' is used it w'as in any 

 sense an American Comi)any. It was not — it was the representative 

 of the original Russian Company. 



Mr. Justice Harlan. — Of tlie Russian Company under its first name? 



Sir Charles Russell. — Acting nnder successive Russian Charters, 

 but not in any sense an American Company or owned by American citi- 

 zens. I thought it possible the President might have had a different 

 idea in his mind. 



The President. — I thought in fact that Americans had got into the 

 company. 



Sir Charles Eussell. — ISTo sir they had not. One other word. — I 

 pay the greatest deference, I need not say, to what any member of the 

 Tribunal calls my attention to, and in reference to the observation of 

 Senator Morgan that the United States supposed that it was buying 

 the fisheries or the fishes in tlie Behring Sea (as to w^iich I used perhaps 

 forcible language in suggesting it was im]^ossible to suppose a gentle- 

 man of Mr. Sumner's knowledge and statesmanship could have enter- 

 tained any such idea), I would refer Senator Morgan to page S5 of the 

 report of the same spee(;h to which I previously adverted — (it is in 

 vohime I of the Appendix to the Case of the British Government) — in 

 which he points out, quite accurately, what are the advantages which 

 the owners of territory enjoy in relation to fisheries. It is in this 

 language: 



As no sea is uow mare clausiim, all tlicse — (that is to say the fisheries to which he 

 is adverting) — may be pursued by a ship nnder any Hag, except directly on the coast 

 and Avitliin its territorial limit. And yet it seems as it" the possession of this coast 

 as a commercial base must necessarily give to its jieojile peculiar advantages in this 

 pursuit. What is now done under difficulties will be done then with facilities, such 

 at least as neighbourhood supplied to the natives even with their small craft? 



That is to say, the natives even with their small craft and with their 

 imperfect appliances, by reason of their residence on the coast, had 

 peculiar advantages in these fisheries, although as a matter of law and 

 of right they were open to all the world. So he says the possession of 

 Alaska will give special advantages to them in that regard. 



It is right to point out that he uses this language in reference to fish- 

 eries in a more limited sense than the sense in which it has been used 

 here. My learned friends have si)oken of the Alaska seal fishery; their 

 Statutes have treated the fur-seal industry as a fur-seal fishery, and so 

 forth. Mr. Sumner was here particularly referring to fisliery in a more 

 limited sense; he w^as referring more i)articularly and itointedly to fish 

 of various kinds which he mentions, but he also mentions, among others, 

 whales; and there is no reasoning in that paragraph which would 



743 not equally apply to any free swimming animal which you can 

 find in the sea. 



Senator Morgan. — I should be very much surprised to find that 

 Mr. Sumner had been digressing from the doctrine established at the 

 time we obtained our inclependence, and was traversing the idea that 

 there was progress in international law. 



Sir Charles Russell. — I am still endeavouring to get the Tribunal 

 to realize something like a just view of the proportions of this case, and 

 to discount the exaggerations which I suggest have been put forward 



