600 ORAL ARGUMENT OF CHRISTOPHER ROBINSON, Q. C. 



(liainetrically opposed to the ar.cumeuts of my learned friends, but so 

 useful for bis then immediate purpose. When a lawyer trained in the 

 doctrines of the common law and municipal law is discussing- a question 

 of property, and is told that it must be discussed not upon principles 

 which he finds laid down in any system of law, but upon abstract 

 theoretical propositions not of what the law is, but what it ought to 

 be, and those are the propositions he is endeavoring to support, he 

 is very a.pt indeed to forget himself, and to say. "Surely I have a 

 right to destroy these things: they are in my ])Ower. Who could inter- 

 fere with me, if I chose to destroy them all? Is not that the best i)roof 

 that they belong to mel" I think Mr. Ooudert forgot for the moment 

 the propositions which it was his purpose to support. But however that 

 may be, and founding my knowledge of trusts upon nothing in the 

 world but upon those treatises which I have referred to, let us make 

 those few inquiries which every one would make when he was told that a 

 trust was asserted and was denied. I think the questions would 

 naturally occur to him. How was the trustee appointed"? What is the 

 nature of the trust which he is to perform ? How is the performance of 

 that trust to be enforced? 



Now then, let us see how this trustee is appointed. Who are the 

 cestui s que trusts. Who appointed the United States trustees of these 

 seal islands? At page 137 it is said that the interest of Great Britain 

 in the preservation of the seal herd is almost as great as that of the 

 United States. Great Britain, then, is oiije of the most influential of 

 the cestuis que trustent. But Great Britain is here objecting to the 

 assumption of this office of trusteeship by the United States. Great 

 Britain says, "If I have any interest in this seal herd — and I either, 

 have or have not — I am of age, and I wish to manage my own property 

 for myself." On what principle is she not to do it? We are talking 

 now about trusteeship. Tlie other nations of the world, so far as we 

 know, have neither assented to nor dissented from the assumption of 

 this trusteeship on the part of the owners of the islands. Then, what 

 is the next thing to be considered. Who are the trustees? They are 

 the persons Avho have the largest interest, beyond question, in the trust 

 property, and their interest is diametrically opposed to that of the 

 persons holding the next largest interest, for whom they appoint them- 

 selves trustees. It is contrary to all one's ordinary notions that they 

 should be the trustees appointed: because their interest and the inter- 

 est of the cestui que trustent do not concur. 



Then let us ask what is the nature of this trust? The trust is to 

 sell the trust property to the cestuis que truntent at a price to be fixed 

 by the trustees. Can you conceive a trust like that? It may be a trust 

 according to the law of nature; it may be a trust according to interna- 

 tional law ; but is it a trust according to any other law that any lawyer 

 ever heard of? 



Senator Morgan. — Trust in invitum. What is that? 



Mr. EoBiNSON. — I hardly know. If you will exjdain what you mean 

 by a trust in invitum. I am not quite sure what you have in your 

 mind. 



Senator Morgan. — A trust imposed upon a man by the attitude that 

 he holds to a particular piece of property. 



Mr. Robinson. — Yes; there may be such a thing. 



Senator Morgan. — Of course there is. 



Mr. EOBINSON. — Yes; I should say there is; but I am not aware of 

 any instance in which there is any trust even in the remotest degree 

 aijproachiug this trust. I am quite aware that a man could hold some 



