TWENTY EIGHTH DAY, MAY 26™, 1893. 



Sir Charles Russell. — Mr. President, I wisli to recall to the minds 

 of the members of the Tribunal the subject we are discussing, and the 

 position that it holds in the main argument in the case. I have dealt, 

 as the Tribunal will remember, with the alleged claims of property in 

 the seals and of an alleged invasion of right as regards the industry; 

 and I have endeavoured to establish, and I hope have established, that 

 there was neither property in the seals, nor anj^ right to the industry 

 invaded by pelagic sealing; and, therefore, I have stated that if there 

 were no rights which called for or authorized protection or justified 

 I)rotection, it was not necessary to discuss, or essential to discuss, what 

 would have been the rights of protection had property in fact existed, 

 or had the rights of the industry in fact lieen invaded. But it is, nev- 

 ertheless, not without importance to follow my learned friend's line of 

 argument and illustrations as set out in this Argument, in order to see 

 whether it affects in any way the truth of the proposition that the 

 pacific rights of nations, that is to say the rights of nations in time of 

 peace, against ships of a friendly Power on the high seas, are of an 

 exceedingly restricted and narrow kind. We must assume that the 

 industry exists, and that my learned friends have i)roduced in argu- 

 ment the cases which they believe are most in point to establish their 

 view of what the rights of self-preservation and of defence will justify 

 nations in resorting to in time of peace. Therefore, it cannot be said, 

 I think, that the time is wasted in discussing, as I must do, these cases. 



I had referred to the case of the " Caroline"; I have only further to 

 say, in relation to it, that from the standpoint from which 1 am asking 

 you to consider the question, it is entirely uniu)portaut whether you are 

 to take the ground u^ion which Lord Palmerston, in the early part of 

 the correspondence, based the action of the British Government, 

 namely that it was an act done to put down a body of marauders who 

 were contemplating offensive operations on Britishterritory, or whether 

 you are to adopt, as Lord Ashburton did, the formula put before him, 

 or suggested to him, by Mr. Webster when he used that emphatic lan- 

 guage pointing out that the strict emergency of the case could alone 

 justify any exceptional measures. 



I conclude my reference to the subject by citing the fact that Lord 

 Ashburton finally made a kind of apologetic statement, and that is 

 rather significant in regard to the matter, showing that he regarded it 

 on the border line. Chancellor Kent in his " International Law "refer- 

 ring to the matter (at page 148 of the 2nd edition by Mr. Abdy) says 

 this: 



Her Majesty's Government having stated tlieir regret at the violation of territory 

 complained of, and at the omission, or neglect, to exj)laiu and apologize for that vio- 

 lation at the time of its occurrence. 



1090 And so forth. 



The matter was then allowed to drop. 

 Mr. PHELrs. — Were you reading the language of Chancellor Kent or 

 Mr. Abdy the editor? 



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