ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR RICHARD WEBSTER, Q. C. M. P. 465 



up to 1867 ? Mr. President, this is a Court in which, although the rules 

 of evidence are fortunately in one sense lax — though matters of history, 

 matters of repute and matters of report have been examined — although 

 the widest range has been permitted to the United States to bring- 

 before this Tribunal anything which they can prove or produce in sup- 

 port of their allegation or assertion of an exercise by Kussia, from 

 beginning to end of the papers as they stand to-day — the Case, Counter 

 Case, and oral or written argument — there is not a single act of exercise 

 proved or even suggested by Eussia. We stand in this position, that 

 the Ukase of 1821, as was proved by my learned friend the Attorney 

 General — and I will not go over that ground again — was never exer- 

 cised or acted upon. The Ukase was withdrawn. 



Senator Morgan. — Before you leave that Sir Eichard, how could 

 Eussia withdraw sometliing she had never asserted? 



Sir Eichard Webster. — The point would be this. I should be 

 entitled to claim a wider finding on the jDart of Great Britain than I 

 was prepared to admit, I was going to say, from the point of view of 

 mere assertion. 



Senator Morgan. — I was speaking of the use and enjoyment for a 

 great many years of the products of fur-bearing animals. 



Sir Eichard Webster. — All I can say is this; speaking of this as 

 exclusive jurisdiction, and assertion and exercise, there is not upon the 

 high seas, or outside territorial waters, the suggestion of any exclusive 

 enjoyment. 



Senator Morgan. — Then she had nothing to surrender. 



Sir Eichard Webster. — I am sure it was my fault, but I was not 

 speaking of surrendering; I never used the word "surrender". I say 

 the Treaty of 1824 and 1825 was a bargain by Eussia she would not 

 impede or interfere with the rights of the United States and Great 

 Britain on the high seas. There is no question of surrender — there 

 was nothing to surrender. Eussia attempted to interfere. That inter- 

 ference had been protested against; that interference had been aban- 

 doned; and then there is the promise that Eussia will not interfere 

 again. But that is not a surrender; that is a statement made in the 

 most solemn manner, — an acknowledgment that the attempted inter- 

 ference could not be insisted upon. But that is no surrender. 



Take the case of my own country years ago, when she used to order 

 that vessels should lower top-sails within a certain distance wherever 

 they met a British ship or within some arbitrary limits. Ultimately 

 a nation says: "I am not any longer going to do it." To a nation that 

 has never been put under that restriction, it is no surrender to say: 

 "We will no longer insist on your doing it — it is an acknowledgment 

 that we are not trying to enforce a right against you". With great 

 deference, the whole distinction is this: That the first Article of that 

 Treaty did not grant or give to the United States, or to Great Britain, 

 anything — they only acknowledged that Eussia — I will not use the 

 expression, had been wrong if it be thought that that be too much to 

 say of a great i!^ation — that Eussia no longer insisted upon a claim 

 which, in a moment of inadvertence at the dictation of the Eussian 

 American Company she had thought fit to make. I do not call that a 

 .surrender — she had no rights which she was surrendering — she was 

 simply saying: "I will not put a gate up; I will not hinder you from 

 pursuing your lawful right." I have (to put an illustration) the right 

 to go along a certain road. A man |)uts a gate across it and stops me. 

 I say to that man: "Take that gate down." He says: "Yes, I will 

 take it down ; I will not put it up again." That is no surrender. There- 

 B S, PT XIII 30 



