ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR RICHARD WEBSTER, Q. C. M. P. 539 



Senator Morgan. — Sir Ricliard, before you read your authority, I 

 would like to know what your position is about this. 



Sir EiCHAiiD Webster. — Certainly, Sir. 



Senator Morgan. — In the exceptional cases you speak of, where a 

 nation may exercise its authority beyond its territorial limits, is the 

 authority when exercised the authority of the statute of such nation, 

 or is it the authority of the international law? 



Sir EiCHARD Webster. — It is the authority of- the statute of the 

 nation. It is the stretching the long arm of the law. I say. Sir, with 

 great deference to the argument on the other side, that the true 

 ground which has been recognized more than once is that either by 

 express consent, or by acquiescence, as you put it the other day — for it 

 may be by acquiescence — nations, sometimes one, sometimes more, have 

 agreed to the arm of the municipal law being stretched in order to 

 prevent a breach of its municipal law. 



Senator Morgan. — Then the question would be how far a nation may 

 be tolerated in defendipg what it conceives to be its rights outside of 

 its territorial limits'? 



Sir Richard Webster. — I say a nation may be tolerated — I am only 

 adopting your language for the moment — 



Senator Morgan. — Certainly. 



Sir Richard W^ebster. — A nation may be tolerated to any extent, 

 if it chooses to say: I am going to make this a matter of war, and I 

 am going to assert that which I can enforce by power. 



But I am now dealing with the legal argument of my learned friend, 

 Mr. Phelps. I am now dealing with the question which is submitted 

 to you under Question live. 



What right of protection had the United States at the time this 

 Treaty was entered into, and at the time that the vessels were seized — 

 what right exists by intornational law? 



If Mr. Senator Morgan will let me postpone to the conclusion of my 

 examination of my learned friend's authorities the consideration of the 

 question that he has more than once hinted at, whether this Tribunal 

 might not have some wider or more general jurisdiction, I would prefer 

 to do so. I do not think I could make my meaning clear with regard 

 to that matter until I have submitted, as accurately as I can, to this 

 Tribunal what our contention is with regard to what I may call the 

 express authorities to which Mr. Phelps refers. 



Now, Sir, the expression "defensive regulations" occurs very rarely. 

 On page 147 of the United States Argument, quoting from Chancellor 

 Kent, the same edition that I quoted from the other day, pages 30 and 

 31, this citation is made: 



Considering the great extent of the line of the American coasts, we have a right 

 to claim for liscal and defensive regulations a liberal extension of — 



What? 



maritime jurisdiction. 



Well, I think that the meaning appears perfectly plain from that 

 language, taking the extract by itself. Chancellor Kent, dealing with 

 the question, and arguing the question, of the three-mile limit, arguing 

 the question of jurisdiction, properly so called, pointed out that for the 

 purpose of fiscal and what he there calls defensive regulations, there 

 was a fair claim to a liberal extension of maritime jurisdiction. If the 

 passages immediately following that extract, and immediately succeed- 

 ing it, are read — they amount to some two or three pages — it will be 

 found that in the whole of that extract, in the whole of that discussion, 



