OKAL ARGUMENT OP SIB RICHARD WEBSTER, Q, C. M. P. 493 



wbich it is based. He pointed out that in the sense of subjection by the 

 seals to the control of man, in the sense of the same voluntary subjection 

 which takes place when the tame hoise or tame pi;i' or any other animal 

 of that kind which may have been originally wild comes, and with dumb 

 language, if I may use such an expression, asks to be fed or to be let 

 into its stable — he pointed out that In that sense there was no subjec- 

 tion by the seal to the control of man and he pointed out further that 

 this doctrine that property depended upon a particular individual being 

 able to take the annual increase must be ill-founded, for otherwise it 

 would have given a claim to property in man^ cases, if not in every 

 case, in which the law of all civilized countries has rejected it. I do 

 not propose to follow my learned friend, the Attorj-iey General, in detail 

 into those arguments. 



He further struck, I submit with effect and successfully, at that 

 which my learned friends Mr, Phelps and Mr. Carter have assumed to 

 be so clear, that no argument was desired to support it and any com- 

 prehension could retain it: namely that a property in the seal "herd", 

 as distinct from a property in each individual seal, was clear and intel- 

 ligible, so that no demonstration or proof were necessary in support of 

 such a contention. I may be permitted only in a single sentence to say 

 that I have been — it may be the fault of my intelligence — unable to 

 understand how, if there is no property in the individual seal, there 

 can be a property in the aggregate of individual seals which forms the 

 ''herd". Upon none of these points, though they occupy a very impor- 

 tant portion of my learned friend Mr. Carter's argument, and of the 

 Attorney General's reply, do I feel it necessary to trouble this Tribunal 

 with a lengthened argument. I have indicated sufiBciently, my concur- 

 rence in the view which the Attorney General presented to the Tribunal. 

 But I now come to that which in my submission is the vice which lies 

 at the root of the argument written and oral, on behalf of the United 

 States, a vice, I humbly submit, which, the moment it is recognised 

 and appreciated, destroys to a large extent the value of the contention 

 in respect of property. That vice is this, that the United States are 

 unable, so far as their argument discloses it to us, to see any difference 

 between the right which a man has to kill wild animals when they 

 happen to come upon his land, and the right of property in the animal 

 whether it is on the man's land or not. Over and over again in the 

 course of the interesting argument of my learned friend Mr. Coudert, 

 relieved as it was, as you Mr. President pointed out, by brightness in 

 many points, he stated this proposition, and said it was so self evident 

 and so convincing by its mere enunciation that he woujd wait till the 

 other side were heard; in fact, he treated it as an admission by us. I 

 could refer to many passages; for iriStance at the very beginning of his 

 speech — I refer to page 554 — he said: 



Now to start from a point that is certaiu, to reach one that may be certain, have 

 we any rights of property at all as to the seals f Here, fortunately, we all concede 

 that we have, and it is said that upon tlie islands these are as much our property as 

 though they were sheep or calves. 



Sir Charles Russell. — Certainly not. 



Mr. Coudert. — Certainly not? 



Sir Charles Russell. — Certainly not. 



Mr. Coudert. — Well, I gave you credit, and I will take it back. I supposed that 

 when we held the seal in our hand — I supposed when we slit its ear — I supposed that 

 when we could put a brand up(m it, that it was our own, as much as it was if it 

 weie a sheep or ewe. Where it comes in I am absolutely incompetent to say. I 

 have read the argument on the other side with interest, and I supposed that it was 

 conceded that upon our land, in our hands, under our flag, in our waters, they were 

 as absolutely our property, as that book is mino. 



