ORAL ARGUMENT OF CHRISTOPHER ROBINSON, Q. C. 599 



sealskins will inevitably bring to tliose wLo can afford to bny them; 

 and they say that that is an obligatory trust. My learned friends dif- 

 fer about that however; and I do not wonder they differ about it. My 

 learned friend Mr. Carter, at one page which has been pointed out, 

 asked if anybody can doubt that it is an obligatory trust; if it can be 

 doubted that, if a nation having that trust incumbent upon it were 

 unfaithful to it, other nations could intervene and depose the unfaith- 

 ful trustee. My learned friend Mr. Phelps, as I understand, founds 

 to a certain extent, though I am quite free to admit more guardedly 

 and cautiously, his claim to property upon that theory. He says that 

 if the only object of the United States in keeping this property is to 

 allow pelagic sealing to exterminate it, of course they are free to destroy 

 it, and that their abstinence therefore entitles them to a i)roperty. 

 There is another place where I had found an extract in which it was 

 said they had a right to destroy it. I must look for that again, for 

 I have not the reference just now. But at all events there is that dif- 

 ference of opinion. 



After stating that, they state that self-interest is a sure guarantee 

 for the performance of those trust obligations. They say that that trust 

 extends to the means and capabilities of a nation for production, and 

 that those who are wronged by a breach of it have a right to redress the 

 wrong, which would be nothing but a removal of the unfaithful trustee. 

 Then they go on to add that this fundamental truth, that this useful 

 race is the property of mankind, is not changed by the circumstance 

 that the custody and defence of it have fallen to the United States, and 

 if the world has a right (as it certainly has) to call on the United States 

 to make its benefits available, they must clothe them with the requi- 

 site power. 



Now in discussing this question I would like to say, first, from what 

 point of view I approach the discussion of any question of trusts. I 

 know nothing whatever of trusts except what I find laid down in cer- 

 tain treatises in America and in England. There are treatises of 

 acknowledged authority on that subject both on the other side of the 

 water and on this side. 



Before I proceed I should like to recur a moment to another matter. 

 I find at page 554 that Mr. Coudert, in arguing as to the question of 

 property, unfortunately forgot himself, or at all events he stated views 

 which were diametrically opposed, as I understand it, to his colleagues. 

 He says: 



To put an extreme case, suppose it were deemed important by the United States 

 to kill every seal upon those islands, what nation in the world would have a right to 

 tind any fault? What nation in the world would say if it were deemed good policy, — 

 if it were advantageous to us — if there were a |)rofit in it — would any nation have a 

 right to say that it is not our property, and we have not a right to kill them for our 

 useful purposes? I take it that the best test of an exclusive property right is the 

 question whether or not any other human being has a right to interfere. 



You can reconcile that to a certain extent with what is said in Mr. 

 Phelps' argument, but you cannot reconcile it with Mr. Carter's argu- 

 ment. My learned friend Mr. Coudert, I know, onght to have followed 

 one of my learned frioids or the other; but my own interpretation is 

 that he was not thinking at the moment of making his choice. He was 

 surprised for the moment into assuming the position of a lawyer. I 

 think he forgot for the moment that he was arguing theoretical and met- 

 aphysical questions; that his old training returned to him, and he 

 enunciated ordinary common sense law for a moment. I think that is 

 the explanation of Mr. Coudert's unconsciously asserting a doctrine so 



