TWENTY-THIRD DAY, MAY i6™, 1893. 



Sir Charles Russell. — Mr. President and Gentlemen, I resume my 

 argument upon the construction of the first question in Article VI ; and, 

 before doing so, I wish for one brief moment to refer to a matter which 

 I am afraid, and I am sorry to find, has caused some irritation to my 

 learned friends on the other side; I mean the reference to the falsifica- 

 tion of certain documents which appear in the original case. I wish 

 our position in that regard to be made quite clear to the Tribunal. We 

 do not in the least suggest, and never have suggested, that those who 

 represent the interests of the United States were in any way blame- 

 worthy in that matter; they were simply deceived; and we accept, as 

 I think I said before, implicitly the statement of General Foster, that 

 when Mr. Blaine was conducting his diplomatic correspondence he was 

 not aware of the contents of these Eussian documents. But we thought 

 it necessary, and we still think it necessary, to call attention to that 

 fact in order to show that, according to our view, the case — the substan- 

 tial case — originally presented on the part of the United States was a 

 case of territorial jurisdiction in Behring Sea, territorial dominion in 

 Behring Sea; and that once these falsified documents are expunged the 

 whole of that question depends upon the construction of the Ukase of 

 1<S21, the action following on that Ukase, and upon the construction of 

 the Treaties of 1824 and 1825. We feel it necessary to call attention 

 to those falsifications and to suggest — Ave may be right or we may be 

 wrong, but it is the view that we submit on this matter — that it is the 

 discovery of these falsifications by which the representatives of the 

 United States were deceived which has led to their change of front;— 

 namely, the change, on which. I have already dwelt at such length, by 

 which the question of derivative title under Russia, the question of 

 territorial dinuinion exercised by Russia, has receded into the back- 

 ground to make room for the different case now presented. 



I called attention at the last sitting to the case of territorial domin- 

 ion which was originally presented on the part of the United States. 

 I showed that that case was consistent with the attitude which the 

 United States had pursued: that it was consistent with the course 

 which the Executive had pursued: that in invoking the aid of their 

 municipal statute as they did they were proceeding on the notion of 

 territorial dominion, and the application within that territorial domin- 

 ion of their municipal statute, and of that 'municipal statute alone; 

 and that there was no trace to be found in the proceedings of a sugges- 

 tion of the exercise of an inherent protective right of property 

 864 or of property interest. I am not going to enlarge upon the 

 subject again, but I observe in passing that I did call attention, 

 in connection with those proceedings in the Alaska Court, to two 

 circumstances which make our position still more apparent. 



The first circumstance I called attention to was this. It was said 

 that although this Alaska Court is a municipal Court, yet it had also 

 Prize Court or International Court functions. I will not stop to ques- 

 tion that; but what I desire to point out is this, that once it exercises 

 or purports to exercise international functions, then the law which it 

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