OKAL ARGUMENT OF SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q. C. M. P. 271 



Sir Charles Eussell. — Quite so, my Lord. For myself I should 

 be prepared to back tbe right of the King in whose territory it was 

 found. 



The President. — Well Sir Charles I thank you very much for the 

 explanation. It has been very useful to me at any rate. I believe the 

 law is the same law that formerly prevailed in France under the feudal 

 system, by which the right of chase and hunting was derived from the 

 regalian right; and I believe the regalian right was exactly the same 

 as that defined in the law of England which you have just read. 



Sir Charles liussELL. — This subject was mentioned yesterday at an 

 advanced stage of our proceedings, and it may not be without interest 

 to say that the discussion reached Ottawa, the seat of Government in 

 Canada, in time to be digested there; and this morning Mr. Tui^per 

 received a telegram which I might be permitted to read, as a matter of 

 some interest. An erudite gentleman, Mr. Grif&n, telepraphs this: 



Edward I of England, on knighting the Prince of "Wales, swore to God on the 

 swan that he wonld conquer Scotland. The swan was the heraldic sign for God, the 

 Virgin, and Ladylove for all Knights. See Walter Scott's history of Scotland Vol- 

 ume 8, and also 15rewer's Historical Handbook, page 861. 



Now, Mr. President, I come to the last ground on which the preten- 

 sions of the United States are based in argument, namely the ground 

 that pelagic sealing interferes with a legal right in the industry, as it 

 has been called, said to be carried on on the Pribilof Islands; but 

 before I call attention to the way in which this proposition is put by my 

 learned and ingenious friend, Mr. Phelps, who has specially taken this 

 proposition under his protection, I should like to remind the Tribunal 

 of the hypothesis on which this question is to be considered. We are 

 away from the question of property in the individual seals: we are 

 away from the question of property in the seal herd. We are away also 

 from the question of any exclusive right in the United States or the 

 lessees of the islands, to kill the seals, or to take the seals, or to pre- 

 vent others from taking the seals in the high sea, or in a given area of 

 the sea. 



Therefore the proposition is that, although there is no such exclusive 

 right, and no such property either in the individual seal or in the seals 

 collectively, yet there is a right to complain, as of a legal wrong, of the 

 fact that seals are killed in the high sea, whereby they are probably 

 prevented from reaching the island. That is the proposition. Now I 

 have to remind the Tribunal that what has to be established in 

 1045 this connection is that sealing on the high sea is an invasion of 

 some legal right connected with the industry on the Islands. I 

 use the phrase "industry" for brevity. I shall describe presently 

 what it is, and consider whether it deserves that appellation. 



Now that is the broad proposition, which, stated in untechnical lan- 

 guage, may be put thus: that if a nation has an industry on its shores 

 which depends upon the resort to those shores of certain wild animals 

 to take which such nation has no exclusive right, and in which it has no 

 property, if it can nevertheless prevent the killing of such animals on 

 the high seas by another nation, if such killing prevents the animals 

 reaching the island and so interfering with the industry. 



I shall have to point out the far-reaching consequences of such a 

 proposition as that: consequences which I think if applied to the inter- 

 ests and actions of the United States authorities themselves npon the 

 eastern shores of America, will be found to be exceedingly awkward 

 for them. But I postpone for the moment the illustrations upon that 

 subject which I intend to submit. 



