ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q. C. M. P. 89 



considered. We only arrive at the couclusion that the (luestion presented in the 

 amendment of the House is of sneh a serious and important a character that the Com- 

 mittee on Foreign Relations Avould not undertake at this time to iirononnce that 

 kind of judgment upon it which is due to tlie magnitude of such a question. 



Very wise words. 



I desire that the Bill as it passed the Senate originally should pass, 

 That is the Salmon Fisheries Bill. 



because it protects the salmon and other lisherics in Alaska, ahout which there is no 

 dispute; but this paiticnlar question is one of very great gravity and smiousness, 

 and the Committee on Foreign Relations, or at least a majority of the entire Com- 

 mittee, did not feel warranted in undertaking to consider it at this time. 



Mr. Justice Harlan. — I tliiuk those observations of Mr. Sherman 

 following- that are important. 



Sir Charles Kussell. — I will read them by all means. 



Senator MoRdAN, — I should like to say this, that we were then in full 

 course of negotiations with (Ireat Britain for the settlement of these dis- 

 l)uted questions, and it was submitted by the Committee of Foreign 

 lielations to the Senate that tha,t dij^lomatic effort should not be 

 obstructed by summary legislation. 



Sir Charles IIussell. — I think nobody can doubt the perfect wis- 

 dom of that view which operated upon your mind, but it did not operate 

 ai)parently ui)on that of the majority of the legislative body. 



Tlie point is not what individual Senators, however Avise and eminent, 

 held in the matter, but what the Legislature has done; and that I am 

 now proceeding to consider. But in answer to Mr. Justice Harlan, I 

 will of course, read, Mr. Sherman's speech. 



General Foster. — He was chairman of the Committee. 



Sir Charles Kussell. — 1 am much obliged. 



I intended, when the amendment was properly before us, to say to the Senate that 

 the Committee on Foreign Relations were of the opinion that while there was no 

 objection at all to the Senate Bill as it passed [that is the Salmon Fisheries lUllJ it 

 being for a clear and plain purpose, the question proposed by the House in the 

 form of an amendment was a grave f)ne, and had no relation to the subject- 

 827 matter of the Bill, and ought not to be connected with it, had no connection 

 really with it, and involved serious matters of international law, perhaps, and 

 of public policy, and therefore it ought to be considered by itself. 



I was directed ))y the Committee to state that the subject-matter, the merits of the 

 proposition proposed by the House, were not before us, and not considered by us, 

 and we are not at all committed for or against the proposition made by the House. 

 We make this Report simply because it has no connection with the Bill itself, and 

 it onght to be disagreed to and abandoned, and considered more carefully hereafter. 

 I, therefore, ask for a Committee of Conference on the disagreeing votea of the two 

 Houses. 



Ultimately it was passed in the form in which it stands on page 99. 



"That section 1950 of the Eevised Statutes of the United States is 

 hereby declared to include and apply to all the dominion of the United 

 States in the waters of Behring Sea, and it shall be the duty of the 

 President, at a timely season in each year, to issue his Proclamation, 

 and cause the same to be published." 



Senator Morgan. — The word "dominion" used in that statute, I beg 

 leave to say, Sir Charles, is the word used in the Treaty. Of course its 

 signification as that statute has presented it must, in the absence of an 

 interjiretation by the Legislature, depend on the judgment of the courts 

 as to what dominion included. 



Sir Charles Russell. — I do not know whether the Tribunal heard 

 that. It is not without some consequence perhaps. The learned Sena- 

 tor has said that that word "dominion" as introduced in that section 



