604 ORAL ARGUMENT OF CHRISTOPHER ROBINSON, Q. C. 



applicable thereto, then it would not be becoming in our nation to contest those 

 claims, so far as they are just and within the fair amount of the damages actually 

 sustained by British subjects. 



That seems plainly to contemplate that this Tribunal is to hold one 

 way or the other whether the seizures and interference with British 

 vessels were wrong or justifiable or not under the laws and principles 

 applicable thereto. If the Tribunal will turn to our Appendix Volume 

 3, No. 1, 1891, at page 55, they will find in that very long letter of Mr. 

 Blaine, of I think the 17th December 1890, these words referring to a 

 proposal made by Great Britain: 



Her proposition is contained in the following pai'agraph, which I quote in full: 

 " I have to request that you will communicate a copy of this despatch, and of its 

 inclosurcs, to Mr. Blaine. You will state that Her Majesty's Government have no 

 desire whatever to refuse to the United States any jurisdiction in Behring's Sea 

 which was conceded by Great Britain to Russia, and which properly accrues to the 

 present possessors of Alaska in virtue of Treaties or the law of nations; and that, if 

 the United States Government, after examination of the evidence and arguments 

 which I have produced, still differ from them as to the legality of the recent captures 

 in that sea, they are ready to agree that the question, with the issues that depend 

 upon it, should be referred to impartial arbitration. You will in that case be 

 authorized to consider, in concert with Mr. Blaine, the method of procedure to be 

 followed." 



Now that is an extract from a letter by Great Britain speaking of the 

 hypothesis, which of course was a certainty, of the United States dif- 

 fering with them as to the legality of the recent captures in that sea, 

 and the issues dependent upon it, and saying that they are ready to 

 agree that the questions with the issues depending upon them shall be 

 referred to an impartial arbitration. Having cited that Mr. Blaine goes 

 on to say : 



It will mean something tangible, in the President's opinion, if Great Britain will 

 consent to arbitrate the real questions which have been under discussion between 

 the two Governments for the last four years. I shall endeavour to state what, in the 

 judgment of the President, those issues are. 



As I understand, he refers back to issues that depend on the legality 

 of the recent seizures; and then he states, for the first time, these 5 

 questions — or 6 questions as they were then, the 6th having become the 

 7th in the Treaty, — as he proposes them; and, as the Tribunal are 

 aware, they were accepted with certain modifications. 



I now proceed to the argument which was in progress yesterday when 

 the Tribunal adjourned. I had said all that I desired to say with 

 regard to the assumption or argument by the United States, that they 

 were in the position of trustees in this particular matter, and the only 

 element I had omitted to notice was that I remember my learned friend 

 Mr. Carter did attach to that argument the condition that the prices 

 should not be prohibitory. Now we know as a matter of fact that the 

 price is prohibitory, that is to say, when you speak of being trustees 

 for mankind at a price at which you are ready to sell the produce of 

 this trust property, I suppose it would be a very fair average in all 

 probability to say that there is not one in 10,000, if one in 100,000, to 

 whom the price is not prohibitory. In truth it is an article only within 

 reach of very rich persons; and in reality this trust obligation — which 

 my learned friends assert is incumbent upon them, with which they 

 assert other nations are bound not to interfere, as to which they say 

 there can be no question whatever of the blessings which tliey are con- 

 ferring upon mankind — is really, without exaggeration, reduced to this, 

 that they are to sell seal skins to millionaires at a profit of 1,000 per 

 cent. That is the precise duty asserted here, and the precise obliga- 

 tion incumbent upon them. 



