ORAL ARGUxMENT OF SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q. C. M. P. 1G5 



The attitude of Great Britaiu on the other.hand, is equally emphatic, 

 I might almost say more emphatic, because they say again and 



917 again, — There are two questions here involved — the question of 

 territorial dominion on the mainland, and the assertion of terri- 

 torial dominion on the sea: We regard the latter as the more important. 



And what can be more emphatic than that note of the Duke of Wel- 

 lington which I read yesterday, in which he says, in reference to the 

 paper handed to him as an intended basis for negotiation: We can- 

 not condescend to enter into negotiation upon the basis of a paper 

 which claims this absurd pretension of jurisdiction 100 miles from the 

 coast. 



You recollect the memorandum I read yesterday. 



We will not enter into a negotiation until that is removed from the area of dis- 

 cussion. 



Thereupon we have the intimation given that the orders to cruisers 

 will be confined to the coast; that nothing will be done that will call 

 for objection; that the orders given by Kussia to its cruisers will limit 

 the effect of the Ukase to the distance from the shore recognized by 

 general international law; and upon that basis the question iiroceeds. 



Now I come to the Treaty itself, making my final comment, if I may 

 be permitted to do so, in the shape of a question. Supposing Russia 

 had said : We intend to confine this treaty to the south of the Aleutians 

 as far as freedom of navigation is concerned, but we do not intend to 

 budge one inch from our assertions of claim of dominion and jurisdic- 

 tion in Behring Sea — What would have been the result? Is there any 

 member of the Tribunal who has any doubt that there would have been 

 an end of the negotiations altogether, and the question never could have 

 been settled at all on the lines of the Treaty, because the Duke of Wel- 

 lington says: I will not treat a paper as the basis of the negotiations 

 in which that pretention is put forward. 



Now I come to the Treaty, which, as I said, in an ordinary case I 

 should have come to hours ago, I refer for convenience consideration of 

 to the print of that Treaty in the first volume of the treaty of 1825. 

 United States Ax)pendix, page 39. It beginsby reciting that thePowers 

 are desirous — 



By means of an agreement which may settle upon the basis of reciprocal conven- 

 ience the different points connected with the commerce navigation and fisheries of 

 their subjects in the Pacific Ocean : 



Without any limitation. 



As well as the limits of their respective possessions on the northwest coast of 

 America. 



Again without any limitation. 



I answer the suggestion that that went up to Yakutat Bay, at 59<^ 

 30', by saying that there is no contemporaneous document in which 

 any such limitation of the northwest coast is mentioned, while there 

 are a great number — I have already read many of them, beginning with 

 the Ukase itself — in which the northwest coast is described as begin- 

 ning from Behring Straits and going down, according to the Kussian 

 claim, to 55° of north latitude. 



918 Then it proceeds in Article I, in these words: 



It is agreed that the respective subjects of the High Contracting Parties shall not 

 be troubled or molested in any part of the ocean, commonly called the Pacific Ocean, 

 either in navigating the same, in fishing therein, or in landing at such parts of the 

 coast as shall not have been already occupied, in order to trade with the natives, 

 under the restrictions and conditions specified in the following Articles. 



