70 ARGUMENTS ON PRELIMINARY MOTIONS. 



It will be noticed further, that the inquiries of the Commissioners 

 are confined by Articles VII and IX to the question of liegulations, 

 and have no reference to the points raised by Article VI. It is clear 

 therefore that by the Treaty it was intended that the Report or Eeports 

 of the Commissioners should be produced, not as part of the Case upon 

 the questions stated in Article VI, but at a later stage and then only 

 in the contingency above referred to. 



Then " with regard to question 5", — that is the property or protec- 

 tion point. — " of Article VI the Government of Her Britannic Majesty, 

 believing that the alleged 'right of property or property interest' 

 depends upon questions of law, and not upon the habits of seals and 

 the incidents of seal life, have stated propositions of law which in 

 their opinion demonstrate that the claim of such right is not only 

 unprecedented, but untenable. These propositions will be found at 

 pages 135 to 140, 153 to 157, and propositions 15, 16 and 17 on page 160 

 of the Case of this Government. This being the view of the Govern- 

 ment of Her Britannic Majesty, it would have been altogether incon- 

 sistent with it, and, indeed, as they conceive, illogical and improper, to 

 have introduced in to the British Case matter which in the opinion of 

 Her Majesty's Government can only be legitimately used when the 

 question of concurrent Regulations is under consideration." He then 

 enlarges upon those views and proceeds — and this is the point to which 

 I wish to bring this discussion now; " These are the views of the Gov- 

 ernment of Her Britannic Majesty, and they must maintain their cor- 

 rectness. But the Government of the United States have expressed a 

 different view; they have taken the position that any facts relevant to 

 the consideration of concurrent ReguUitions should have been included 

 in the Case on behalf of Her Britannic Majesty presented under 

 Article III, and that the absence of any statement of such facts in 

 that Case has placed the United States at a disadvantage. The Gov- 

 ernment of Her Britannic Majesty while dissenting from this view are 

 desirous in every way to facilitate the progress of the Arbitration and 

 are therefore willing to furnish atonce to the Government of the United 

 States and to the Arbitrators the separate Report of the British Com- 

 missioners with its Appendices. 



The Government of the United States are at liberty, so far as they 

 think fit, to treat these documents as part of the Case of the Govern- 

 ment of Her Britannic Majesty. 



He then deals, iu dignified and I think most courteous language, 

 with the suggestion to which I have already referred, the injurious 

 suggestion, and he expresses regret that it should have been made. 

 He meets it by shortly stating that the Report and Appendices so far 

 from being made to meet the Report furnished with the Case of the 

 United States in the words in which they are now (that is October, 

 1892), j)resented to the United States, were printed on the 21st of June, 

 that is to say, three months before we saw or could have seen their 

 Commissioners' Report, and "laid before the Queen in pursuance of 

 Her Majesty's Commission". 



Then comes Mr. Foster's answer; and I think my learned friend did 

 not quite realise what was the effect of Mr Foster's answer. We 

 regard it as practically an assent to the position taken ui^ by Lord 

 Rosebery, an assent in this sense, that they were willing to take and 

 did take the Report of the British Commissioners as practically all 

 that we were going to offer on the incidents of seal life if and so far as 

 they had any relation to property. We do not recede from that. We 

 maintain the position still; that, so far as the determination of the 



