29 



In my judgment, if Russia chose to violate tlie international law and 

 to repudiate all comity, her attitude was not altered because it may 

 have exposed her to unfi-ieudly criticism provoked by the pressure of 

 adverse interests on the part of the United States or Great Britain. 

 At all events, any such departures of the tribunal from the strict duty 

 of stating this history, confined to the subject of fur-seal fisheries in 

 Bering Sea, without reference, deduction, conjecture, opinion, gloss, 

 or comment, will only provoke the prompt dissent of Russia, or will 

 cause Great Britain and the United States, whenever their policies so 

 require, to declare that our decision is not warranted by the strict 

 nature of the inquiry submitted to us, and is obiter dictum. 



I consider it a happy circumstance that in the opinions delivered 

 on this subject there is such contrariety and conliict that, if they are 

 adhered to, we are obliged to show that a majority of the tribunal 

 are unable to agree upon an identical answer as to the historical facts 

 submitted for inquiry and decision in the first point and in the last 

 clause of the third point of Article VI. 



And inasmuch as an agreement of a mnjority of the tribunal as to 

 the historical facts so required to be stated is the essential basis of 

 the decision of the other matters presented in points 2 and 3, I resi)ect- 

 fully insist that we have not been able to reach a decision ujion them, 

 and for this reason a majority of the tribunal can not actually decide the 

 inquiry stated in points 1, 2, and 3 of Article VI. 



The matters presented for historical inquiry and decision in points 

 1, 2, 3, and 4, of Article VI, relate only to a derivative right of the 

 United States to the fur-seal fisheries, as they are termed, in Bering 

 Sea, and the exclusive jurisdiction over that sea to control and protect 

 such fisheries. These questions are presented and may be considered 

 and decided, upon the facts and law that must control our decision, 

 under the submission of questions of a judicial nature, in points, of 

 Article VI, and in Articles I and VII of tiie treaty. In so consider- 

 ing and deciding them we need find no occasion to express, in oar 

 award, any conclusions that may impinge upon any right of Russia, 

 or call it in question, or that may unnecessarily wound her sensibilities. 

 It may also turn out that a final award will be reached as to the 

 rights of property and protection claimed by the United States, or the 

 rights of pelagic sealing claimed by Great Britain, based upon consid- 

 erations entirely apart from any derivative rights of the United States 

 that may have come to that Government from Russia. 



