ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q. C. M. P. 79 



by a line which in no place ap])roacbecl within six miles of either coast, 

 and in many places it is 40 miles away from either coast, and it is the 

 boundary line between Great Britain and the United States now. 



Sir Charles Eussell. — I am aware of that, Sir. 



Senator Morgan. — That destroyed the three-mile territorial limit, as 

 I suppose, and substituted, in place of it, the other line. 



Sir Charles Kussell. — If you, Senator, think this is ad rem (and T 

 say it with the unfeigned respect that I desire to pay to your observa- 

 tions) I will endeavor to make some kind of answer. In the first place 

 I should require to know a little more about the jnecise circumstances 

 of the water which is called the Straits of Juan de Fuca, which leave 

 Puget Sound on the one hand and pass Victoria on the other: whether 

 or not it (;ame within the category of land-locked waters, and so forth. 



Senator Morgan. — Tl>ey are not land-locked waters. 



Sir Charles Eussell. — I am merely suggesting that I should 

 require to know more about this before ex])ressiug an opinion. 



Senator Morgan. — The lakes are I think. 



Sir Charles Eussell. — I should then require to know how far the 

 concurrence of other nations had been given to the arrangement made 

 between the two Powers who owned the adjoining territory; and lastly 

 I should express the opinion, for what that opinion is worth, that if that 

 could be properly called the ''high sea", and other nations wei-e not 

 concurring in its appropriation between these two Powers, that the effect 

 of that treaty would be binding on these two Powers, and on these two 

 Powers only. 



Senator Morgan. — I am only speaking of the fact that the United 

 States and Great Britain in their treaties had established the i^ropo- 

 sition that a water boundary may be established by treaty, and upon 

 the high seas. 



Sir Charles Eussell. — I think it would be founding, if I may 

 respectfully say so, Senator, a tremendous conclusion ui^ou a very small 

 base of premises to say that because, in that particular case, that ]>ar- 

 ticular treaty had been entered into, it was the affirmation of a principle 

 of general apjilication. 



The President. — The same argument applies as to the line estab- 

 lished between Eussia and America at the moment of the cession of 

 territory in 1807. 



Sir Charles Eussell. — That was between those tAvo: It would be 

 binding as between those two, but if it interfered with the rights of 

 nations on the high sea it would have no bijiding force or operation 

 whatever upon them. But I beg with all deference to decline to be 

 called upon to justify everything that the United States has claimed, or 

 even everything that Great Britain has claimed. 



815 Senator Morgan. — I called your attention to it because you 



seemed to think there was some uncertainty in the Act of Con- 

 gress on the subject, whereas we consider there is absolute certainty, 

 because we legislated according to our boundaries. 



Sir John Thompson. — I think it will be found that that was not a 

 Treaty dividing water on the high seas outride the three mile limit, but 

 fixing the boundary line behind which you were to ascertain the respec- 

 tive properties of the nations; and its bearing was ascertained by its 

 course on the high seas. 



Sir Charles Eussell. — I have no doubt about it. But let there be 

 no misapprehension upon what I am now saying. I am not contesting 

 the right of the United States to make any law it pleases over any area it 

 pleases so far as it purports to bind only its own nationals — that is not 



