ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR RICHARD WEBSTER, Q. C. M. P. 469 



nothing is needed at all, except to point to undisputed possession for 

 20 years. 



Sir liiCHARD Webster. — Exercised. 



Senator MoRaAN. — Exercised, that is all that is needed. I under- 

 stand an assertion by Kussia of a right to property for instance, or a 

 right of jurisdiction in Behring Sea might, as against the United 

 States and Great Britain, to say tlie least of it, possibly be maintained — 

 1 do not say that it could; but it may be said as a ground of argument 

 that it might be maintained on the ground that they had exercised 

 these rights in respect of fur-bearing animals in Behring Sea — the 

 right to control them, to take possession of them, make grants of 

 monopolies or charters, upon the basis of the existence of such prop- 

 erty there, and that that would amount perhaps to such an assertion as 

 is mentioned in the first point in this 6th Article of this Treaty. 



Sir EiCHAED Webster. — If I may respectfully attempt to answer 

 you — I submit you do not help or elucidate the consideration by 

 covering it up with generalities. Piescription is an undoubted prin- 

 ciple both of the law of Great Britain, and, I believe, of the United 

 States. Whetlier it has any application as between nations is a very 

 much more doubtful ])oint; but assuming it for this purpose — I think 

 it an extremely doubtful point whether prescription has any applica- 

 tion in such a case; but my answer, however, is a broader one — that 

 in order to prove prescription, you must prove tlie existence of the 

 right in respect of which the prescription is claimed and the exclusion 

 of other people from that riglit. 



Senator Morgan. — There is no question of that. 



Sir Richard Webster. — And, in order to make one step in the 

 direction of i^rescrii^tion, Russia (for I am speaking of Russia and the 

 United States her successors) must prove this: that they alone enjoyed 

 the right of catching seals on the high seas, and that they excluded 

 other people from the right of catching seals on the high seas. I 

 assert that you do not move one step towards arriving at the existence 

 of a prescriptive right on the sea by proving you have killed seals on 

 the land. 



Senator Morgan. — Possibly you might, by proving that you 

 claimed the right to catch them in a certain area and that nobody else 

 has interfered with you. 



Sir Richard Webster. — What area? 



Senator Morgan. — Beliring Sea. 



Sir Richard Webster. — Now, we get much nearer the point, you 

 will not find in the United States written Argument, a claim to exclu- 

 sive jurisdiction all over Behring Sea. I could have undeistood this 

 case in law, if the United States had had the courage of the convic- 

 tions of some of her original advisers, and had claimed it as mare clau- 

 sum, — I could have understood the contention which you have been 

 good enough to put before me. But, Sir, with deference, I submit to 

 your judgment that the moment you get to what my friend, Mr. 

 Phelps, calls defensive regulations, — I am a little bit anticipating, but 

 I cannot help it because you have been good enough to put the ques- 

 tion to me, — the moment you get to what are called defensive regula- 

 tions, or, in other words, the right to defend interests upon land — the 

 right to defend these interests in territorial waters, you abandon and 

 cut away the idea that you have a prescriptive right tlien to claim the 

 area outside. The wliole strength and virtue of Mr. Phelps' argu- 

 ment, to which I shall address myself to-morrow, in reference to defen- 

 sive regulations, is that they have got no rights upon the high sea 



