ORAL ARGUMENT OP SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q. C. M. P. 35 



own mind, not completely under control, says: "I must admit that 

 Eussia when she discovered tlie Pribilof Islands, af-quired the rights 

 in the Pribilof Islands and in the fur-seal industry connected with 

 them, subject to the moral right of the native Indians to pursue pelagic 

 sealing." 



Moral right to pursne pelagic sealing! Moral right to commit an 

 indefensible wrong ! Moral right to commit a crime against humanity I 

 Moral right to commit an offence a little worse than murder, and almost 

 as bad as piracy ! My learned friend had not appreciated the length to 

 which that inconsistency leads him, and the position in which it lands 

 him. His idea seems to have been that there were a few straggling' 

 Indians along this coast, existing from a pre-civilized occupation, who 

 used to go out in their canoes, and when impelled by hunger or the 

 urgent need of raiment killed fur-seals. "Quite right", said my learned 

 friend, Mr. Carter, "Yes; kill a fur-seal for the necessities of your 

 stomach and for the necessities of your back ; but if you do more than 

 that it is a crime. Kill for your stomach. Kill for your back" — prob- 

 ably he would also extend it to the backs and stomachs of the other 

 members of the family — "but beyond that you must not go. Barter 

 you dare not, you cannot. The destructive agencies of civilization and 

 commerce come in. Once you do that, you are beyond the pale of civ- 

 ilization": and international law, in some incomprehensible way, is 

 down upon him. He is hostis humani generis. 



I need not say that is an impracticable kind of limitation to seek to 

 imply; but it is not only impracticable to imply it, but as a rule at all 

 applicable to the condition of things on this coast it is wholly foreign 

 to it. What is the fact? My learned friend forgets that the Hudson's 

 Bay Company, which owned a Charter as far back as the time of Prince 

 Eupert, acquired territorial dominion in the way in which sovereigns 

 were accustomed to grant territorial dominion in those days, over all 

 the territory stretching westward from and contiguous to Hudson's Bay; 

 that that company had been carrying on this commerce, and a great 

 commerce in furs of all kinds, fur seals amongst the rest, although 

 762 to a limited extent, by this very system of barter with these 

 nativesalong thatcoast. My learned friend forgets also that under 

 a lease from Eussia before the sale of Alaskan territory to the United 

 States, for a number of years the Hudson's Bay Company had a lease 

 of an important part of this very Alaskan territory from Eussia, and 

 in the same way along this very coast was securing by barter from the 

 natives all the jielts on that coast, including, to a limited degree I admit, 

 the fur-seal amongst the rest. In other words, it never was the case, so 

 long as there was any approach of civilized man to the neighborhood 

 at all, that there was a limitation of pelagic sealing to meet the mere 

 necessities of the hunter, or the mere need of clothing. They have 

 lived by it. They have bartered the products and the result of their 

 hunting and of their industry, and so fiir from their being scant of rai- 

 ment, and so far from their raiment consisting of what I may call bar- 

 baric material, I am told that these gentlemen, on their Sundays and 

 holidays, sport tall hats and linen shirts, and vestments made by more 

 civilized people than themselves; and amongst other things they own 

 schooners. 



Mr. Foster. — In these last days. 



Sir Charles Eussell. — Well, they are progressing in civilization, 

 I agree. 



Mr. Foster. — And in pelagic sealing, 



