TWENTY-FIRST DAY, MAY ii™, 1893. 



The President. — Sir Charles, if you please, we are ready to hear you. 



Sir Charles Russell. — Mr. President, I have only an additional 

 word or two to say upon the subject of the attack, made courteously, I 

 admit, upon the British Commissioners. I understand the main point of 

 that attack to be that they, instead of condemning, said something to 

 justify and to recognize the fact of pelagic sealing. I wish now to refer 

 to the passage to which specific attention was called by my friend. It 

 is section 102 of the British Commissioners' Eeport. I will read it, 

 and also section 103. 



In regard to interests, the sealinfij industry is naturally divided into what may, 

 for the sake of brevity, be termed the shore and ocean interest respectively. The 

 rights in either case are indisputable, and the possessors of one class of these rights 

 "will not willingly allow them to be curtailed or done away with for the mere jjur- 

 pose of enhaucing the value of the rights of their commercial rivals. Thus the only 

 basis of settlement which is likely to be satisfactory and permanent is that of 

 mutual concession, by means of reciprocal and equivalent curtailments of right, in 

 so far as may be necessary for the preservation of the fur-seal. 



It maybe added, that the line of division between the shore and ocean interests is 

 not an international one, and that the question of compromise as between the two 

 industries cannot, in consequence, be regarded strictly from an international point 

 of view. If we may judge from the respective number of vessels employed, the 

 interest of citizens of the United States in pelagic sealing is at the present time 

 approaching to au equality with that of Canada, while Germany and Japan have 

 been or are represented in sealing at sea, and other flags may at any time appear. 

 The shore rights, again, are at present chiefly divided between the United States 

 and Russia, although Japan owns some smaller resorts of the fur-seal. 



The Tribunal will see that the Commissioners are there presenting the 

 consideration of the shore and ocean interests, as they designate them, 

 not merely as a matter in contention between the United States, on the 

 one hand, and the subjects of Great Britain upon the other, but they 

 are speaking of those rights generally. They point out in the next 

 passage that it is not au international difference merely between Great 

 Britain and the United States, because the citizens of the United States 

 theraselves'take a large and important share in pelagic sealing; and 

 therefore the observations in those i)aragraphs are not confined to 

 Behring Sea, still less to the eastern portion of Behring Sea, in respect 

 of which the United States asserts special and peculiar claims. It must 

 not be forgotten that, treated in that broad sense, pelagic sealing is a 

 fact which has never been questioned, even by the United States, out- 

 side Behring Sea until this controversy has arisen. 



Do not let it be forgotten that although the United States, qua 

 764 foreigners, are restricted in efforts of legislative control absolutely 

 to territory, — that is to say, although the effect of tlieir legislation, 

 as against foreigners, is confined to and does not extend beyond their 

 own territory, an admitted principle I need not say — yet their legislation 

 may apply to the whole world as regards their own nationals. In view 

 of this complaint against the British Commissioners that they recognized 

 pelagic sealing and spoke of the right of pelagic sealing we find therefore 



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