4 ARGUMENTS ON PRELIMINARY MOTIONS. 



stations and native settlements on the seal Islands and so forth, for the 

 purpose of collecting- and reporting to him all possible authentic informa- 

 tion upon the present condition of the Seal Fisheries of Alaska and so 

 forth. The Tribunal, therefore, cannot fail to see that, if it be within 

 the competence of this Tribunal to acquire possession of the informa- 

 tion which such a Report presumably contains, that it is a matter of 

 considerable importance. 



Now how is this document referred to? The document exists, and 

 that is not disputed by my learned friends who represent the United 

 States. The report was made conformably to the Statute that I have 

 cited a special report to the authorities of the United States, to be found, 

 therefore, among the archives of the department to which it specially 

 belongs. Our information, that is to say, the information of Her Maj- 

 esty's Government, is and can only be secondhand upon the subject of 

 this Report. Our information is derived from a publication made by 

 Mr. Elliott, in which Mr. Elliott himself refers to this Report, and that 

 publication was made on the 17"' of November 1890, and is set out on 

 page 53 of the 3^"'^ part of the Appendix to the Case of Her Majesty's 

 Government. Here it is referred to as having apijeared in the columns 

 of an American paper called the "Cleveland Leader and Morning 

 Herald", of the 4"^ of May, 1891 ; and it is there signed or purports to be 

 there signed "H. W. Elliott." lb also purports to be, although so set 

 out in the journal which I have mentioned, a copy of a communication 

 or part of a cojiy of a communication purporting to be addressed to the 

 Hon. William Windom, Secretary to the Treasury. It is, therefore, in 

 the documents before the Tribunal, first referred to in the Case on behalf 

 of Her Majesty. It is next referred to in the Counter Case of the United 

 States at page 75 ; and I rely, and I think it right at once to call the 

 attention of my learned friend to it, not merely on the fact of the ref- 

 erence which 1 am about to read, but upon the character of that refer- 

 ence, as a justification for the application which I am now making. 



It is thus referred to. "The Commissioners", that is the British 

 Commissioners, "also rely on a Newspaper extract which purports to be 

 a summary of a report made by Mr. H. W. Elliott in 1890 to the Secre- 

 tary of the Treasury to establish several alleged facts. One of these 

 statements in this alleged Summary is that there were 250,000 barren 

 female seals in the Pribiloflf Islands in 1890. This is cited by the Com- 

 missioners to show the lack of virile males in the rookeries in that year." 

 They then proceed. " An examination of the Extract as published in 

 vol. 3, which is the reference I have given to the Tribunal in the 

 Appendix to the case of Great Britain, "discloses the fact that this 

 statement", that is to say the statement of figures, "appears after the 

 signature of H. W. Elliott, and it cannot, therefore, be construed as a 

 portion of such report. Furthermore, how the Commissioners can ques- 

 tion Mr. Elliott's liower to compute the number of seals on the island as 

 they have done, and still rel^^ at all on his computation as to the num- 

 ber of barren seals, needs explanation." The Tribunal therefore will 

 see, first of all, the fact of the report is not questioned, but what is 

 questioned is the authenticity of, the correctness of, the extract which 

 purports to be given in the paper from which the British Commissioners 

 of Her Maijesty's Government in their Case cite. 



Now in that state of things Her Majesty's Government considered 

 that it was of moment that the actual report, or an authentic copy of 

 it, should be at the disposition of those who advised the Queen, to use 

 it as they think right, and to place it before this Tribunal if it throws 

 any imi^ortant light on any part of the discussion in which this 



