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



as to which I agree, yet he apparently goes on to say it is a mistake to 

 suppose it is not also law in the strict sense of that term. Then he 

 puts this question of usufruct, and, in the second paragraph he says : 



No possessor of property, whether au individual man, or a nation, has an absoluto 

 title to it. liis title is coupled with a trust for the benefit of mankind. 



That is his first proposition. 



Second. The title is further limited. The things themselves are not given him, 

 but only the iistifruct or increase. He is but the custodian of the stock, or principal 

 thing, holding it in trust for the present and future generations of man. 



That may be all very well as a question of ethics. It is not law. I 

 apply it to a concrete illustration straight away, to one indeed which 

 is put by my learned friends themselves in argument; it shows how 

 little faith they have in these vague general propositions. I 

 1005 aftirm, as my learned friends have affirmed, that the United 

 States would have a right if they chose — a right in point of law, 

 and no one could complain of tlieir doing it except as an offence against 

 the moral opinion of the world, if indeed it were such, — they would 

 have a right to knock on the head every seal that came to the Islands; 

 and my learned friends have claimed it, for they have, I will not say 

 threatened, but suggested it to the Tribunal as a thing to weigh with 

 it in arriving" at its decision. 



Mr. Carter. — We have not asserted that right. 



Sir Charles Russell. — I assure you I am well founded in what I 

 say. If I am challenged on that, I will refer to the passage to-morrow 

 morning. 



The President. — Mr. Carter says it was not an assertion of right. 

 He has not asserted that right, but you are to take it as a hint. 



Sir Charles Russell. — What is it if it is not an assertion? 



The President. — Call it a hint. 



Sir Charles Russell. — Very well, I wiU call it a hint. I certainly 

 understood him to say — and he was well within his legal rights in say- 

 ing it — that if this Tribunal did not help the United States to protect 

 the seals for the benefit of mankind, so that the blessings of Providence 

 might, through the agency of the United States, be distribated to 

 mankind, that they would have the right, I think he went even further 

 than that and said they would be justified — which is a Avider word than 

 right, for it would embrace moral considerations also — in knocking 

 every seal on the head. 



Now one other passage. At page 67 of the Argument, enlarging 

 upon this topic and still upon the question of right to the usufruct 

 merely, he says: 



There are some exceptions, rather apparent than real, to the law which confines 

 each generation to the increase or usufruct of the earth. 



Mark the words he uses. And then he proceeds to give these excep- 

 tions: minerals, wild birds, and fish of the sea, which he describes as 

 inexhaustible and outside this rule of usufruct. As 

 as^^rTion^that regards that statement, I think it will be found tiiat there 

 there is only a is uo such thing as any inexhaustiblc treasure of the carth 

 frlctof'prope'ity! or the sca; certainly in the case of fish it has been found, 

 in the experience of many countries, necessary to restock 

 the rivers and to try and replace various kinds of fish which have been, 

 exhausted. 



Now I say, so far, that I have justified myself; but my friend car- 

 ries, quite logically, his argument still further j and iioni individuals 



