ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q. C. M. P. 45 



Mr. Justice Harlan. — I never saw a line of the paper before its pub- 

 lication. I remember to have heard President Welliii<? talk on the 

 general subject, and suggested in reply to an inquiry by him as to the 

 propriety of his expressing his opinions, that if he had matured views 

 he could properly give them to the public in some form. 



Sir Charles Russell. — I have no doubt that is the foundation for 

 it. The only effect on my mind was that I read that with more care 

 and discrimination, as you have seen. 



Mr. Justice Harlan. — He, like President Woolsey and President 

 Angel, are Presidents of Universities in America. Although none of 

 them are trained lawyers, they are gentlemen of wide reading, and stand 

 very high. 



Sir Charles Russell. — If I were to excise from the voluminous 

 excerpts in the printed argument of my friends all who are not trained 

 lawyers, the residuum would be very small. 



Mr. Justice Harlan. — I did not mean to suggest that you ought to 

 do that, but simply to inform you who they were. 



Sir Charles Kussell. — Quite so, Sir. I was about to say that my 

 object has been to reduce this question, so far as it is a matter of money 

 interest, to something like its just and true proportions, and to dwell 

 upon the novelty of the claim. And now my last word in this connec- 

 tion is to point out in a sentence, emphasizing what my friend Mr. Car- 

 ter so well said, how much more important the mode of determining 

 this question is than the question itself. My last word in this connec- 

 tion is to point out the grave and far-reaching consequences of a deci- 

 sion which would afiQrni a property right in this dispute. My friends 

 have said — I do not quarrel with it; they are probably right — that a 

 mere ordinary right of defence of property such as the law recog- 

 773 nizes, and such as I shall hereafter explain, would be inadequate 

 for the i)urposes of the protection of the fur-seal in the Behring 

 Sea. I am willing to accept, without argument, their statement for 

 this purpose as correct. They claim that the mere right of defence of 

 possession would be inadequate. They say to give them the effective 

 right of protection, they must have a right of search; they must have 

 a right of seizure; they must have a right of confiscation; and I need 

 not point out that such rights must have not merely a direct effect in 

 interfering with the rights of other nations on the high seas, but must 

 have a direct and serious effect in harassing and interfering with the 

 commerce of the world, which has nothing to do with the question of 

 pelagic sealing at all. 



I say, therefore, that this question does involve gravely, does involve 

 directly, the freedom of the seas and the equality of all nations, be they 

 great or small, upon the seas. 



Now, Mr. President, I proceed to state the order of the argument 

 which I am about to present. I shall, first, consider the 

 facts and circumstances of the seizures of British vessels men^t'^s^uorth!'^^"" 

 under the executive authority of the United States Gov- 

 ernment; for it must not be forgotten, what I took the liberty a good 

 many days ago now of reminding the Tribunal of that the Government 

 of the Queen here is a party complaining that the property of the sub- 

 jects of Great Britain has been, without legal warrant, seized and con- 

 fiscated, and some of the crews of those vessels fined and imprisoned, 

 also without legal warrant. It is part of your duty to find the facts in 

 relation to those seizures, though it is not part of your duty to assess 

 the claims for damages in respect to them, I shall then pass to the 

 consideration of the first four quest ions, grouping them together, in 



