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



Again I note the evidence upon which the Congressional Committee 

 was led to the belief that Russia had controlled the waters, and seized 

 and confiscated vessels, and that they were going to get the ownership 

 and jurisdiction over Behring Sea, does not appear. But having called 

 attention to the Report of the Committee of 1888, of course at a time 

 when the case was jurisdiction over Behring Sea and nothing else — 

 when this idea of defensive reguhitions had not occurred to the fertile 

 imagination of anybody — that report of the Committee having been 

 referred to at page 70 of the Counter Case to which I was directing 

 your attention, you will find what the contemporary evidence is. I 

 read now from page 70 : 



No reference is made in the United States Case to the report of any previous 

 Committee of Congress. Such reports, however, exist, and are of a directly opposite 

 tendency. 



Now I read from the Report of the Foreign Affairs Committee in 1876. 

 That, Mr. President, as you will remember, is one year after the pur- 

 chase. 



Senator Morgan. — Which House was that? 



Sir Richard Webster. — It does not say. Sir, but I will get it from 

 the history of Alaska. At page 70 of the British Counter Case, you 

 will find this : 



The motives which led the United States Government to purchase them [Rus- 

 sia's American possessions] are thus stated in a report of the committee on foreign 

 affairs published 18th May, 1868: " 1 hey were, first, the laudable desire of citizens 

 of the Pacific coast to share in the prolific fisheries of the oceans, seas, bays, and 

 rivers of the Western World; the refusal of Russia to renew the Charter of the 

 Russia-American Fur Company in 1866; the friendship of Russia for the United 

 States; the necessity of preventing the transfer, by any possible chance, of the 

 north-west coast of America to an unfriendly Power." 



I wonder whether that Committee thought that North-west coast 

 meant from 60° down to 54° ! It goes on : 



The creation of new industrial interests on the Pacific necessary to the supremacy 

 of our empire on the sea and land; and finally, to facilitate and secure the advan- 

 tages of an unlimited American commerce with the friendly Powers of Japan and 

 China. 



I pass the reference here to Mr. Elliott. I shall have to refer to that 

 later on and show that he was absolutely right; but I pass from that 

 for the moment, as I do not want to argue on any contested matter. I 

 am taking the reports from the official sources of the United States 

 which are not suggested in any shape or way to be otherwise than 

 worthy of credit. I call attention to the report of the evidence of Mr. 

 Williams before that Committee of Congress to which reference has 

 been made. It is quoted on page 72. He said : 



I do not think, when the Government made the purchase from Russia, that any 

 one outside of a dozen people, perhaps, who had been acquainted with sealing 

 heretofore, had the slightest knowledge of there being any value in those islands, 

 or that the Government was going to get anything of value outside the mainland of 



Alaska. 



And, then, Mr. President, upon the suggestion that the value to the 

 Government enhanced the j)rice they were willing to pay, let me read 

 an extract from the evidence of Dr. Ball, a gentleman who (as I shall 

 shew at another stage of this case), has been more than once referred 

 to by the United States, and whose evidence is used on other points; 

 but i will read, merely for this piu pose, the extract set out at page 73 : 



I said that in 1866 (not "in the early days of the industry") I purchased first-class 

 fur-seal skins at 12 1/2 cents a-piece, that being the price at which they were sold by 

 the Russians. The point of this observation lies in its application to the oft-repeated 



