ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q. C. M. P. 29 



to tliat property. If tlieio is no property, there is no protection, 

 because there is nothing to protect; but I chvell upon this, because, I 

 think it important to do so in order that the Court may see tliat the 

 claim wluch the United States Counsel have been instructed to make, 

 or thongiit lit to make, that the system pursued on the Islands is wliolly 

 free from objection on the ground of waste or on the ground of cruelty, 

 is a claim which, when the facts are examined, is seen not to be w^ell- 

 founded. There is certainly this to be said — and my learned friend, 

 Mr. Coudert, made it a subject of humourous observation, but it seems 

 to me a just enough observation, — that the pursuit of the seal at sea 

 does give the animal a chance of escape. The clubbing him on the 

 head makes the islands a mere slaughter-house for the seal and gives 

 him no chance at all. And after all there is this to be said for pelagic 

 sealing, that at sea the seal is in his natural, or what I claim to be his 

 natural element; and he has been furnished by nature Avitli means of 

 resistance to the attempts of man, with means of evading the pursuit 

 of man, which give him a better chance of life and of escape. 



Now my learned friends, as the Tribunal cannot fail to have noticed, 

 have adopted a lofty tone in this discussion. I think you, Mr. President, 

 said that Mr. Carter, in his eloquent address, spoke for mankind. He 

 did. How h.e spoke for mankind I shall make apparent in a moment or 

 two. But my learned friend, in effect, said this : "We the United 

 States are not nuiking this claim from any selhsh motives. We are 

 here as the iriends of humanity. We acknowledge that this is not our 

 property absolutely. We are trustees for the world at large. We are 

 trustees: mankind the cestuis que trustent. We only ask to be per- 

 mitted in the interests of mankind, for the benefit of mankind, to per- 

 form our oflice as trustees, as friends of humanity, as philanthropists, 

 as champions of the interests of the world". 



Well, I am very far from doubting the sincerity of my learned friends; 

 but I must be permitted to point out that, while accepting these profes- 

 sions as sincere, their demands seem to me to be exactly the demands 

 which would be made by a selfish Power making an eft'ort to secure the 

 seals for themselves; for what do they say"? " We are the owners of 

 the Pribilof Islands in Beliring Sea. They are pleased pathetically to 

 desciibe those Islands as the last home of the fur-seal". They say: 

 " Give to us, the tenants and owners of these Islands, the power to 

 exclude everybody but ourselves from the great expanse of ocean in 

 which those Islands are situate. Put au end to pelagic sealing in the 

 Behring Sea, and not in Behring Sea only, but justify us in stretching 

 out the arm of legal authority over a still wider expanse of ocean. 

 Authorize us by your award to search, and if necessary to seize 

 755 and confiscate, vessels that are engaged in this inhuman, this 

 immoral trafBc, or vessels that we suspect are engaged in this 

 pursuit; and having given us that authority we will recognize our duty 

 as trustees to mankind by giving to mankind the benefit of the fur- 

 seal at the market price": the market price being enhaiued by two con- 

 siderations: the considerations, first, the duty which the United States 

 imposes upon every fur-seal skin taken on the Islands; and enhanced, 

 next, by the fact of the monopoly which this demand implies and 

 secures. 



I will only take leave to say that that does seem to be a very extr;iva- 

 gant view of the obligations of a trustee for the benefit of mankind, and 

 that I do not see in what way this i)r(tfession of the duty and obliga- 

 tion of the trustee differs from the assertion of the most exclusive and 

 absohite right which the most selfish nation might assert in any sub- 

 ject of exclusive property. 



