ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q. C. M. P. 401 



There will then remain the 5th question, the answer to which is for- 

 mulated on page 63 of the printed Argument, thus : 



That the United States have no right (a) of protection, or (6) of property in the 

 seals froqiientiug the isLands of the United States in Behring Sea when they are 

 outside the ordinary three-mile limit. 



Now, I have only one other word to say. I have been dealing solely 

 with the question of legal right; I have not said one word, nor shall I 

 say one word, in this connection, with a matter entirely distinct, to be 

 approached from an entirely different standpoint, — the question of 

 Eegulations. I will only say what I have previously said, what the 

 corresi>oudence of the representatives of Great Britain justifies me in 

 saying, that Great Britain is now, as she has always professed to be, 

 ready to consider the question of Eegulations upon a fair basis, — upon 

 the basis of a common interest to be safeguarded. 



Very little remains now for me to say, Mr. President. I have to 

 submit that in none of the forms in which this claim has been pre- 

 sented, shifting and varying as they have been, is that claim maintain- 

 able in point of law, whether it is to be regarded as a claim by deriva- 

 tive title from Russia which was the case originally put forward, 

 1201 but which has now been allowed to recede largely into the back 

 ground: or whether it is a case of property in the individual fur- 

 seal or in the fur seal collectively, or in an industry said to be founded 

 on the fur-seals with, or ajj irt from, a claim of i^roperty in the fur-seals 

 themselves. 



In every form in which it can be put, or in which human ingenuity 

 can suggest that the claim can be put, we submit that it is untenable. 

 It is opposed to that great principle which lies at the very root of this 

 whole controversy, the principle of the freedom of the sea, the principle 

 that upon the sea the ships of all nations are equal, whether they be 

 ships of a'great power or ships of an insignificant power; the principle 

 that upon the high sea the ships of each nation are part of the territory 

 of that nation ; the principle that upon the high sea the nationals of 

 every nation can take at their will, at their pleasure, according to their 

 ability, from the products of the sea. 



And, Mr. President, it is no light matter that this is the first time in 

 the history of the world that any nation, or any individual of a nation, 

 has ever claimed a right of property in any free-swimming animal in the 

 ocean, that this is the first time in which an exception has been sought 

 to be made in the case of the fur-seal from the right of all mankind to 

 take from the ocean the fish and the animals that it contains. 



The advancement of these propositions is grave enough; still graver 

 the sanctions which are invoked, forsooth, in the name of international 

 law for the vindication and for the defence of these extravagant and 

 unfounded pretensions. For what are those sanctions? They are the 

 alftrmation of the right on the part of the United States, and for all 

 time, to search, to seize, to condemn, vessels of a friendly Power engaged 

 in pelagic sealing or about to engage in pelagic sealing, or which have 

 been engaged in pelagic sealing and to take from them the seals that 

 they have acquired, or to drive them from the waters, with a show of 

 force, to the ports from which they sailed. In other words, it is no less 

 than this — the assertion in support of this supposed right of those acts 

 of high authority on the high seas which are only permitted by inter- 

 national law to belligerents, or only allowed to be exercised against 

 pirates with whom no Jiation is at peace. 



Mr. President, I have endeavoured to ai'gue this question with as much 

 closeness of reasoning as I could command. I have not indulged in 

 B S, PT XIII 26 



