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



Accordiugly, it appears to have becji passed over miol)serve(l hy foreijin powers, and 

 it rt'iiiaiuod without executiou in so far as it militated against their rights. 



That Avas the United States view of it. 



The Ukase of 1821. 



Now, I pass to the much more important document, the Ukase of 

 1821, and the Tribunal will observe that, at this period, the question of 

 seal-fishing, either on Islands or in the open sea, had not assumed any 

 importance. No doubt, the natives along the coast had been catching 

 all they could for their clothing and for their sustenance, and no doubt 

 barter had begun to spring up as early as that period, though it would 

 be mainly south of the Aleutian Chain, but we have no record of any 

 existing, to any exteut, north of the Aleutians. Now comes this impor- 

 tant document, the Ukase of 1821, which is set out in volume I of the 

 Appendix to the United States Case, at page 16: 



Edict of his Imperial Majesty, Antocrat of all the Russias. 



The Directing Senate maketh known unto all men. Whereas in an Edict of his 

 Imperial Majesty, issued to the Directing Senate on the 4th day of September, and 

 signed by his Imperial Majesty's own hand, it is thus expressed: 



'Observing from reports submitted to us that the trade of our subjects on the 

 873 Aleutian Islands and on the northwest coast of America appertaining into Ivus- 

 sia, is subjected, because of secret and illicit traffic, to oppression and impedi- 

 ments; and finding that the principal cause of these difficulties is the want of rules 

 establishing the boundaries for navigation along these coasts, and the order of 

 naval communication as well in these places as on the whole of the eastern coast of 

 Siberia and the Kurile Islands, we have deemed it necessary — ' 



and so forth. 



Now, before I proceed to read the operative parts of this document, 

 may I invite the attention of the Tribunal seriously to mj learned friend 

 Mr. Carter's contention in relation to this Ukase, and the effect of that 

 Ukase upon the Treaties of 1824 and 1825; because it will save me a 

 good deal of rei:)etitiou and argument if the Tribunal will bear in mind 

 that the whole of the discussion in which I am now embarking will be 

 addressed not merely to showing that the right of fishing was recog- 

 nized in the Behriug Sea, but also to showing that the phrase "north- 

 west coast of America" had not the limited meaning in the Treaties 

 and in the correspondence which my learned friend, Mr. Carter, assigned 

 to it, but extended to the whole of the coast-line of the possessions 

 claimed by Russia from Behring Strait down to its most southern 

 boundary. 



In order that the Tribunal may have this point more clearly before it, 

 let me remind the Tribunal what my friend Mr. Carter's argument was. 

 The argument was that north of the Aleutian Chain in Behring Sea, 

 and north of Behring Sea, the rights of Russia never were questioned 

 at all — that the debatable ground was not reached until you came south 

 of the Aleutians. 



Mr. Carter. — South and east. 



Sir Charles Russell. — Oh yes, of course. 



Mr. Carter. — Not much south. 



Sir Charles Russell. — South and east of the Aleutians; but that 

 south and east of the Aleutians Russian pretensions were met b}^ certain 

 more or less undefined claims on the part of Great Britain, and by 

 .certain more or less undefined claims to territory on the part of the 

 United States: that all the dispute related to portions of sea and terri- 

 tory soutli of the Aleutian chain; and that the north west-coast — and 

 this is the main point — in the sense in which it was used in the Ukase, 



