56 



In tlie same letter he observes that the President, not desiring the 

 long- postponement which an examination of tlie legal anthorities from 

 LTlpiau to Phillimore and Kent would involve, refers to the following 

 passages in the letter of Mr. Phelps of September 12, 1888, as fully ex- 

 pressing his own views : 



"Much learning has been expended upon the discussion of the 

 abstract question of the right of mare clausiim. I do not conceive it 

 to be applicable to the i)resent ease. Here is a valuable li.'liery and a 

 large, and, if i)roperly managed, permanent industry, the property of the 

 nations on whose shores it is carried on. It is proposed by the colony 

 of a foreign nation, in defiance of the joint remonstrance of all the 

 countries interested, to destroy this business by the indiscriminate 

 slaughter and extermination of the animals in question in the open 

 neighboring sea during the period of gestation, when the common 

 dictates of humanity ought to protect them were there no interest at 

 all involved. And it is suggested that we are prevented from defend- 

 ing ourselves against such depredations because the sea at a certain 

 distance from the coast is free. The same line of argument would 

 take under its protection piracy and the slave trade, when prosecuted 

 in the open sea, or would justify one nation in destroying the commerce 

 of another by placing dangerous obstructions and derelicts in the open 

 sea near its coasts. There are many things which can not be allowed 

 to be done on the open sea with impunity, and against which every sea 

 is mare clausum; and the right of self-defense as to person and prop- 

 erty prevails there as fully as elsewhere. If the fish ui)on Canadian 

 coasts could be destroyed by scattering poison in the open sea adjacent 

 with some small profit to those engaged in it, would Canada, upon the 

 just principles of international law, be held defenceless in sucli a case? 

 Yet that process would be no more destructive, inhuman, and wanton 

 than this. If precedents are wanting for a defense so necessary and 

 proper it is because precedents for such a course of conduct are like- 

 wise unknown. The best international law has arisen from precedents 

 that have been established when the just occasi(m for them arose, 

 undeterred by the discussion of abs.tract and inadequate rules." [T. 

 IS. Case, Vol. 1, App., 263, 287. 



At a later date, in his letter of June 14, 1891, to Sir Julian Paunce- 

 fote, Mr. Blaine said : 



"In the opinion of the President Lord Salisbury is wholly and 

 strangely in error in making the following statement: 'Nor do they 



