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



Now the pajic of the daily report to which I am referring is page 475, 

 and my learned friend is dealing with that very thorny subject — the 

 early history of i)elagic sealing. lie is face to face with the fact, wliich 

 he admits, that the hrst and earliest pursuit of fur-seals known in the 

 history of the human race was pelagic; fur-sealing, carried on no doubt 

 in a rude fashion — not in as effe(;tive a fashion as modern a])i)liances 

 permit, but still carried on as a means of subsistence, and as a means 

 of affording articles for barter (and in that way furnishing them to 

 commerce), along the coast at the instance of the aboriginal natives. 

 My learned friend, addressing himself to that subject, said: 



As I said before, many times in the coarse of my argument, the attack by barba- 

 rians on the frnits of the earth is limited, confined, and generally not destructive; 

 but when civilization makes her attack upon thom her metiiods are perfectly 

 959 destructive, unless she makes use of tliose appliances whicli civilization 

 teaches her by which that destruction may be avoided. Therefore there is no 

 difficulty in awarding to the United States a right of property, subject to the right 

 of the Indians to capture in the manner in which they were formerly accustomed to 

 do before the use of vessels for pelagic sealing ; but not a right to go out and engage 

 in pelagic sealing. 



The President. — Do you not thiul<: it very difficult to draw a legal line of limita- 

 tion between what an Indian is allowed to do for himself, and what he may be 

 allowed or permitted to do in the service of a European or civilized man? 



Mr. Carter. — There are always practical difficulties connected with dealings with 

 barbaric tribes — greater or lesser difficulties — but not insuperable difficulties con- 

 nected with it. ♦ 



My friend evades the point, — does not even ai>preciate the point. It 

 is not a question of there being greater or less difficulties in dealing 

 with barbaric tribes — it is the question whether it is not difficult to 

 draw the legal limitation between what is admitted to be a thing that 

 the Indian may do for himself, according to his barbaric methods, and 

 what he may do if employed at the instance of civilized man. The 

 learned President recalls my friend to the question with this obser- 

 vation : 



Do you find that there is a substantial legal difference between the two cases? 

 Mr. CARiEK.-^There is a substantial one. 



The President. — Between the case of an Indian fishing on his own account, and 

 an Indian fishing on the account of a civilized man? 

 Mr. Carter. — I think there is a very substantial one. 

 The President. — A substantial legal one? 



Then we get to that broad ground which is always the refuge once 

 we are trying to bring these vague, undeterminate propositions to the 

 touch of legal i)rinciple. 



Yes, 



says Mr, Carter, 



when I speak of "legal" I mean moral. We are on international grounds — inter- 

 national law, and there is a sharp distinction. 



The President. — Moral and international are difterent fields of discusaiou, I 

 think. 



Mr. Carter. — I said " there is no sharp distinction". 



Sir Charles Russell, — Very well — " there is no sharp distinction". 

 I take it so. That is to say, being in the field of international law, 

 there is no sharp distinction between moral and legal law — that is the 

 proposition, therefore, of my friend. 



Mr. Carter. — It is. 



Sir Charles Eussell. — Yes, I know. Then the learned President 

 continues : 



Moral and international are different fields of discussion, I think; but they may 

 often join. 

 Mr. Carter. —They are not so different as may be supposed. 



