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



Senator Morgan. — Do you recollect whether Canada passed any 

 Statutes offering' a reward for killing- seals, or whether they are in oper- 

 ation? 



Sir Charles Russell. — 1 will enquire; 1 am not aware of any. I 

 rather think there are some liegulations in that sense — (whetlier they 

 amount to Statutes or not, I will not say) — relating to the fisheries on 

 the east coast; but I will enquire and endeavour to supply the neces- 

 sary answer. 



Now I i^ass from that topic, in the consideration of which I have 

 endeavoured to get the mind of this Tribunal in a fitting frame to con- 

 sider according to its intrinsic merits and just proportion what this 

 question of pelagic sealing really is. There are some other preliminary 

 matters which 1 must also refer to. The Case, the Counter Case, the 

 Argument, printed and oral, of the learned counsel of the United States 

 have been full of denunciations of pelagic sealing. It has not only 

 been denounced as inhuman, but each act of the pelagic 

 ri?w ^If ''pHa^ic sealcr has been denounced as a crime and a great moral 

 seaiiiicr taken %y wroug — a little Avorse tluui murdcr, and almost as bad as 

 United Stales. pjracy. Xow I wisli to examiue this for a moment or two, 

 746 and see whether there is not pervading this style of argument the 

 same kind of exaggeration which was addressed to the subject 

 of the industry itself. 



We start with this initial fact, that the pursuit of the fur-seal by 

 means of pelagic sealing is the oldest pursuit of the fur seal historic- 

 ally known. We start with that fact. It is a pursuit which goes back 

 (to use my friend, Mr. Carter's expression) to prehistoric times. It is a 

 pursuit followed by the aboriginal inhabitants along tiie coasts in ques- 

 tion. But there is also something more to be said for it. My friend 

 Mr. Coudert was sympathetic, as he always is, in his denunciation of 

 the evil caused by the destructive agencies of man as regards seal rook- 

 eries in other parts of the world. How stand the facts? Is pelagic 

 sealing, whatever its faults, accountable for that! No. In every one 

 of the cases which have been referred to, the cause of the extermina- 

 tion of the fur-seal species was tlie indiscriminate slaughter upon Jand. 

 I am not suggesting for a moment that there is not a difference between 

 the system pursued by the United States and their lessees on the 

 Islands and that pursued in the indiscriminate slaughter on the other 

 rookeries in the world. But the fact remains that it has been slaughter 

 wpon land, and in no case slaughter at sea, that has brought about the 

 extermination of the seal species in any of its accustomed rookeries. 



Further: it is true to say that discrimination cannot be pursued in 

 relation to pelagic sealing — at least practicalli/ cannot be i)ursued. I 

 I)resume it would be possible to distinguish a full-grown male seal from 

 a young seal, but I take it to be common ground between us that, tak- 

 ing the sizes of seals two and three years of age, it would not be prac- 

 tically possible to distinguish between a female and a male in the water. 

 That is an advantage, ])ro tanto, in favor of land killing. But are there 

 no disadvantages in land killing"? 



I have been unable to repress a smile when reading the beautifully 

 descriptive, but most imaginative accounts, which are given in the lit- 

 erature of the United States, as to the merits and blessings of killing 

 on land. In one passage the writer has gone to the length of suggest- 

 ing that the seal herd, grateful for the protection of the United States, 

 reposing with confidence in the humanity of man, had entered into a 

 treaty with the United States — the word "pact" I think was used — 

 that they would offer up a certain proportion of their skins yearly as a 



