ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR RICHARD WEBSTER, Q. C. M. P. 413 



award a distinct decision on each of the five points, and you are further 

 told by the language of Article VIII that you are to find upon any 

 question of fact involved in the claim, though, of course, you are not 

 to award judgment for a specific amount, nor are you to direct the 

 United States Government, or the British Government, as the case 

 may be, to make any particular payment. 



Kow, what, is the meaning of these five Questions'? I need only in 

 two sentences repeat what my learned friend, the Attorney General, 

 put before you many days ago. We understand the first four Questions 

 to be pointing to the original title of Eussia and the derivative title of 

 the United States as the successors of Eussia. 



Perhaps there is one view of the fifth Question which I do not think 

 my learned fiiend, the Attorney General, meant to exclude, but in 

 respect of which I should be perhaps prepared to go a little further 

 than his enunciation, as it appeared to me at any rate, to go. 



The learned Attorney General was asked by you Mr. President 

 whether, if we construed the fifth question in the way in which he was 

 inviting you to construe it, it would not amount to a repetition of the 

 first four Questions. Now, it seems to me to be quite clear, and only 

 fair to the United States to say and I do not understand that my 

 learned friend, the Attorney General, to say anything the contrary of 

 this, that there is a view of the 5th Question upon which the United 

 States are entitled to rely which is difl'erent altogether from the first 

 four Questions. The first four Questions are conversant with rights 

 asserted and exercised by Eussia, with recognition by Great Britain of 

 those rights, with the question of whether there was not, in the Treaty 

 of 1825, a particular bargain between Eussia and Great Britain about 

 those rights, and whether or not the United States did not get unim- 

 paired everything that Eussia had. But there is this view of the 5th 

 Question to which I am later on going respectfully to address the atten- 

 tion of the Tribunal. It may be that Eussia never asserted or exer- 

 cised her rights, and yet had them all the time. That question was 

 undoubtedly intended to be submitted to this Tribunal by the fifth 

 Question. It may be that the occasion for the assertion had not come, — 

 that the occasion for the exercise had not come. The fifth Question 

 was meant, in my submission, to ask the Tribunal whether or not the 

 United States does, in fact, possess either by virtue of the United 

 States own position as a Nation, by virtue of the possession of the 

 Islands, and, indirectly if you like, by virtue of her being the successor 

 of Eussia as Avell — does or does not the United States possess any 

 exclusive right of protection or property in the fur-seals referred to in 

 that Question? 



There is one view — I only give it as an instance in which that ques- 

 tion might become most material. You are well aware that there has 

 been a discussion, many years ago — rather a burning discussion — as to 

 whether (Tr not the nation owning a particular territory had tlie exclu- 

 sive right of fishing in the ordinary territorial waters. At one time 

 there was some question about it. It is quite immaterial for my pur- 

 pose to consider what are the rights or wrongs of that matter. It does 

 not ultimately become material to this question. But assuming that 

 the United States could have supported their contention originally 

 put forward that either the whole of Behring Sea, or belts of 100 miles 

 from the coasts of Behring Sea, were to be regarded as being in the 

 position of territorial waters, it then would have followed that they 

 might have exclusive rights in the fishery of seals in those waters, as 

 distinguished from the fishery of seals in the high seas. Without in 



