ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q. C. M. P. 287 



and no exclusive right, let us see what would be the consequences of 

 this new i)riBciple which is asserted? Where will it land us? 



Just let me put some of the cases. Take that large and increasing 

 volume of industries carried on upon the west coast of America, and 

 along the coast of British Columbia, and stretching further north along 

 the Alaskan coast, known as the salmon canning industries. You, prob- 

 ably, Mr. President, hardly appreciate what an enormous industry 

 that is. Unless you have visited the neighbourhood of the Willamette 

 river, as I have had the opportunity of doing, and of Portland, in 

 Oregon, you can form no idea of the extent and importance of that great 

 industry as a means of food supply to mankind. Supposing by some 

 modern system and improved method of catching salmon, neighbouring 

 uations should be attracted to the fishing, and catching large numbers 

 outside the territorial waters should intercept the salmon on their way 

 up the rivers where they would be brought within the reach of this 

 industry : is it to be said because the canning industry would be thereby 

 injured, that there would be a legal right to prevent the fishers from 

 operating ouside the territorial waters on the ground that they pre- 

 vented the salmon coming up the river to the place where they could 

 be more conveniently caught ? Once you have realized that exclusive 

 right to take is out of the question, the parallel is complete. 



Take another illustration : the case of the flsliery on the coast of New- 

 foundland — a matter largely debated, for many reasons — an enormous 

 industry carried on on the coast by reason of the j)ossession of that terri- 

 tory of Newfoundland, not merely because the sailors are in a convenient 

 position to go to sea and catch the fish, but because their ownership of 

 that territory enables them to do an enormous trade, to carry on an 

 enormous industry, in curing fish upon the land. Supposing that that 

 industry is found to be greatly affected, because some enterprising 

 American sailors and fishermen go outside the three-mile limit and 

 catch enormous quantities which would otherwise have come within the 

 three-mile limit, and so nearer to and within easier access of the New- 

 foundland fishermen: suppose that the interference were so great that 

 their industry should droop and their commerce should be blighted: 

 would that give them any legal right? None whatever. 



Again, take the case of the Guano Islands in the south, where the 

 deposits of countless myriads of birds, over many years, have caused 

 there accretions of enormous value in the shape of guano. Supposing 

 some change of fashion took place, which offered a fitting' reward to the 

 sportsman or to the hunter to kill these birds, in their tens and hun- 

 dreds of thousands for the sake of their plumage, and that thereby this 

 great and profitable guano industry on the islands were impaired, nay, 

 brought to an end. Could the owners of the islands complain 

 1064 that because they were carrying on an industry on the islands, a 

 valuable industry, an important industry, and because that 

 industry was attacked by these men in shooting these tens of thousands 

 of birds outside the islands, that therefore that shooting was wrong? 



Or take again the illustration, whicli is an a])t one, as it seems to me, 

 where the collection of the eggs of the wild birds of the air is an impor- 

 tant industry, as it is upon many islands, as it is in connection with 

 some of these very islands in Behring Sea. I have got here before me 

 a book which I should like to hand to the Tribunal to examine. It is 

 a Report of Mr. Elliott in 1874, the one that is referred to by my learned 

 friends in some parts of their case and argument, in whicli he refers — 



Mr. Foster. — We discuss your reference to it. 



Sir Charles Eussell. — Eeally I do not understand you. 



