T^A^ENTY-FIFTH DAY, MAY 2^^^, 1893, 



The President. — We are liappy to resume our hearing- again, Sir 

 Charles, and are quite ready to hear you. 



Sir Charles Russell. — Mr. President, when the Tribunal last sat, 

 I was discussing what was the true lueaning of question 5 of Article 

 VI. I had pointed out what we conceive to be the meaning, and I had 

 added that I proposed also to discuss the dilferent effect given to that 

 question in various forms in the Argument on the part of the United 

 States. While I was endeavouring to establish the point that question 

 5 is of the same character as the preceding questions, in the sense that 

 it relates to a question of exclusive jurisdiction, and is so designated in 

 the succeeding Article VII, — while I was dwelling upon that i)oint, you, 

 Mr. President, put to me the question whether the result of the argu- 

 ment would not be in effect to say that question 5 was the same as 

 question 4: to which I answered, and I repeat that answer: in effect, 

 yes. But I have now to suggest the probable reason why question 5 

 was added. 



It will be observed by the Tribunal that all the previous questions, 

 1, 2, 3, and 4, are conversant with rights which Kussia asserted and 

 exercised. It has, therefore, nothing to do with what rights Russia 

 possessed. 



Therefore question 5 might properly find a place in the Article in 

 order to cover the possibility (it was no more than a liossibility) that 

 there were rights which Russia had in fact, but which she did not assert 

 or which she did not exercise. That would I think be a sufficient 

 ex])lanation by itself why question 5, although of the same character 

 as the preceding questions, still finds a place in that Article. A farther 

 explanation might be found in this fact, that at the period to which the 

 first four questions relate, namely, the period of Russian dominion, the 

 whole of the territory on the east side of Behring Sea down to and 

 including the Aleutian chain, and the whole of the territory ui^on the 

 west side of Behring Sea from Behring Straits down to the southern 

 side of Kamschatka, were also Russian territory. Therefore question 

 5 may also have been framed in order to leave open the ])oint whether 

 any rights over the intervening waters that Russia may have asserted 

 and exercised, treating it if she so willed, and as she professed to have 

 the power to do, as a shut sea — whether that condition of things was 

 or was not altered when the portion of the territory bounding the east- 

 ern side of Behring Sea passed into other hands so that the territory 

 on each side came to be in different ownerships. 



But so far as the mere questions in Article VI are concerned — 

 955 I say it with all respect to my learned friends — I care not what 

 meaning is put upon them so far as those five questions are 

 concerned. 



I shall have to submit that just in x>roportion as they depart from the 

 main argument of Mr. Blaine based upon the assertion of territorial 

 dominion derived from Russia, just so in inoportion do they become 

 more and more involved in absurdities, more and more indefensible in 

 law become the positions they assume. I only attach importance to it 



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