ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q. C. M. P. 291 



The President. — Perliaps it is best to read it again. 

 Sir Charles Eussell. — It is ou page 13G : 



The case of the United States has thus far proceeded upon the ground of a national 

 property in the seal herd itself. Let it now be assumed, for the purposes of the argu- 

 ment, that no such riybt of property is to be admitted, and that the seals are 



1068 to be regarded outside of territorial waters asferce naturce, iu the fuU sense of 

 that term. 



I have been arguing, of course, upon the assumption of this propo- 

 sition. 



The President. — That is an assumption. That is not the general 

 statement of the United States. 



Sir Charles Eussell. — IsTo, Sir. 



The President. — It is an assumption merely for the sake of argu- 

 ment. 



Sir Charles Eussell, — May I point out that I have been endeav- 

 onriiig, I thought, with the closest attention to the order of the points, 

 to tbllow out this assumption. I have argued, lirst, the question whether 

 there was a right of property, and in discussing this question, I endeav- 

 ored to establish — I hoped I had established — that seals were ferie 

 naturie. I had passed away from that, and I had therefore assumed as 

 the datum of this part of the discussion, as Mr. Phelps logically assumes, 

 that they are /era? naiurce. His jiosition is that, assuming them to be 

 ferw natures, assnming no property in the seals or in the herd, yet that 

 there is a property in the industry; that is the point 1 am now arguing. 



The President.— There is no misconception about that. 



Sir Charles Eussell. — No, Sir. Now, Sir, I have said all I have 

 to say npon those general illustrations of the fallacy of this proposition. 



The Tribunal here adjourned for a short time. 



Sir Charles Eussell. — Mr. President, recurring to the proposition 

 which I said at the commencement of my argument on this point must 

 be established by my h'arned friends, I have now to submit that that 

 proposition has not been and cannot be establisiied. That proposition 

 is that what must be shown is, that pelagic sealing is an invasion of a 

 legal right attaching to the industry. I have dwelt at some length 

 upon the matter, because of the respect that I unfeignedly feel for any- 

 thing my learned friend Mr. Phelps feels justitied in gravely advanc- 

 ing; but I have finally to say, first of all, that I find no authority either 

 in municipal law or in international precedent to warrant the claim 

 that is here made; se<;ondly, that I have pointed out by illustrations 

 that i have given, that if any such idea were to be accepted, novel as 

 I submit it is, it certainly would apply to many other cases; and, when 

 it is remembered that there is no property right in the thing or no 

 exclusive right to take the thing, it would have a far-reaching impor- 

 tance. 



There are two other subjects that were referred to incidentally in 

 some observations which fell from you, Sir, as to certain rights, which 

 might be likened to industrial rights, which had not a copy and patent 

 tangible existence, but which might be considered in the ri^iJt. 

 nature of property or property right, and the special illustration that 

 you gave was in relation to copyright. Now I think that that was per- 

 haps a reference not without its use, because it does present an 



1069 illustration of a case in which there exist in the popular, ordi- 

 nary acceptation of the phrase, natural rights of jiroperty which 



may take the form of a useful invention for the benefit of the world, or 

 of a creation of the brain, either in the shape of works of imagination, 

 the result of long labour and research, or works of history or science, 



