ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR RICHARD WEBSTER, Q. C. M. P. 497 



Dot mean to decide anything of the kind, and that that point was not 

 befoie him; and when the whole of his judgment was examined, we 

 submit it is phiin that that learned Judge was laying down no differ- 

 ent rule at all, but was simply referring to tlie doctrine of pro])erty 

 ratione soli, i. e. the power to take that which was upon certain territory 

 or land for the time being. 



Therefore, Mr. President, what is our position to day in regard to 

 this matter? The question is the same between Great Britain and the 

 United States as it might be between two owners of the Pribilof Islands, 

 as it might be between the owner of the island of St. Paul and the 

 owner ot the island of St. George. It is a pure accident, for the pur- 

 pose of the matter we are considering, that both those islands happen 

 to belong to the United States. They might have been on one side or 

 the other of that imaginary line which is drawn through the sea in 

 order to divide the territory of Eussia from that of the United States; 

 and so far as any knowledge in the minds of the United States nego- 

 tiators at that time was concerned, there might have been seal islands 

 as close to each other as St. Paul and St. George on either side of the 

 line, or those two islands themselves might have been on either side of 

 that imaginary line. Let us, just for a moment, and only for a moment, 

 test the case in that position. The St. Paul islander might say that the 

 seals bred upon his island came back to his island, and that while they 

 were on his island he could prevent anybody from killing them, he could 

 prevent anybody from coming and hunting them; and the same would 

 apply to the waters within which he was sujiposed to have exclusive 

 dominion. I am in this position. Sir: — That so far as the main fallacy 

 which I submit underlies the written and oral arguments of mj'^ learned 

 friends is concerned, there is not an authority or a vestige of authority, 

 (beyond that to which I have made passing reference and, which has 

 been, I submit, misunderstood,) which has laid down a different propo- 

 sition. There is not a vestige of authority with which I have to con- 

 tend. On the contrary they are all in my favor. But my learned 

 friends, knowing the extreme difficulty of their position, adduce in their 

 aid a doctrine which is well recognized as giving what is called, not an 

 absolute property, but a qualified property: and may I be permitted to 

 say. Sir, a doctrine which, if mere presence upon the islands had been 

 sufficient to give the absolute title, would have been wholly unneces- 

 sary; because I agree in the view presented by some members of the 

 Tribunal that if there be absolute property in a things that property 

 follows the thing where it goes, and does not depend upon geograph- 

 ical bounds at all. My learned friends being pressed by the difficulties 

 of their position, invoke what is called animus revertendi. 



The President. — Sir Richard, I beg to observe that, even admitting 

 the statute law of the United States was to attribute property, as Lord 

 Hannen justly observed, some people attribute to it, in the g;ime or 

 the fish or the birds, in any definite part of the territory of the United 

 States, it would not be implied that other nations would acknowledge 

 that property anywhere. 



Sir Richard Webster. — That, of course, Mr. President, is a fortiori 

 an instance of what I was saying, and we must assume, and we must 

 do gross injustice to the lawyers of the United States if we assume, 

 that in disregard of this consideration they have framed their statutes 

 as claiming property in these wild animals, not only while tliey are on 

 land and in territorial waters, but when they are to be found in any 

 part of the high sea. I do not wish to go back upon that, because I 

 do not think it is fair or just to impute such a meaning to the framers 

 B S, PT XIII 32 



