THIRTY-FOURTH DAY, JUNE 7™, 1893. 



Mr. Robinson, — I feel very strongly indeed, Mr. President, the posi- 

 tion in whicli I am ])]aced in being; called upon to address the Tribunal 

 at this stage of the dis(!Ussion; but I shall be spared the necessity of 

 further personal allusion if I may ask the Tribunal to be allowed to 

 apply to myself, but with very much added force, the few well chosen 

 observations with which my friend who precedes me has prefaced his 

 argument. To me, 1 am afraid for a number of years longer than for 

 him, the M'ork of a junior Counsel has also been unaccustomed; but 

 there are two considerations which may reconcdle one, at all events to 

 a certain extent, to recurring, for a time, to the labour of earlier years. 

 Many gentlemen of our profession T believe would say that the place 

 even of a junior in a great national controversy of this description, is 

 to be iireferred to the work of a senior in the ordinary duties of daily 

 practice; and in the next place, if I may be allowed to make an obser- 

 vation purely personal, may I say that all the surroundings and cir- 

 cumstances of this case in its conduct here, and, much more, all the 

 personal associations connected with it on every side, have been such, 

 whatever the duties may be, important or unimi)ortant, accustomed or 

 unaccustomed, as to make it only a pleasure to discliarge them as best 

 one might be able. 



If it has been difticult for my learned friend to follow the Attorney 

 General (as 1 can well understand that it was), I trust it will be 

 remembered how much greater the difhculty must be for me to follow 

 not only the Attorney General, but my learned friend Sir Eichard 

 Webster as well. If I may use a simile, Mr. President, not altogether 

 appropriate to our serious work here, it does seem to me that I am 

 called upon to perform a task, which, while it can no doubt be best 

 performed in the place where we are, can seldom be successfully per- 

 formed by one of my own nationals. I am called upon, I fear, to 

 present to the Tribunal something not altogether distasteful, some- 

 thing whicli may possibly not be altogether useless, but which must be 

 made up of scraps and of leavings — the scraps and the leavings ot 

 very much better artists, and artists I may say, who have found the 

 material so attractive, that even what they have left is not very good 

 of its kind; by which I mean that if there are any points in this case 

 which have not been thoroughly discussed, you will find that they are 

 naturally the points which it is least useful to discuss. At all events 

 I have felt very strongly, that if 1 could consult only the interest ot 

 the case and of valuable time, and follow the dictates only of my own 

 judgment, I should say at once the only thing whicli I am able to say 

 without doubt or hesitation — that every thing that can be said in the 

 case on our side has been already said, and well said, and that it can 

 serve no useful purpose to attempt to add to it. 



But there is one thing, Mr. President, of which I am quite certain : 

 It could not be of any possible assistance to the Tribunal, and therefore 

 it would not be becoming in me, if 1 were to attemi)t to follow my learned 

 leaders into any branch of this case in anything ai)proaching to detail. 

 The case has been exhaustively and thoroughly discussed, as it was abso- 



571 



