316 ARGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



And tlie same circumstance which deprives the United States of its 

 just right of answering by counteracting proofs the new matter con- 

 tained in this Counter Case also deprives them of the ability to fully 

 treat of such matter in argument. Entirely occupied as they are, and 

 must necessarily be, in the final work of translating and carrying 

 through the press the argument already prepared by them upon the 

 original Cases, they have no time at their disposal in the short period 

 between the delivery of the Counter Case and the time appointed for 

 the submission of the arguments within which to carefully review and 

 comment upon this new matter. 



Even the evidence in respect of the claim for damages made by Great 

 Britain is chiefly comprehended in the Counter Case, so that the United 

 States Government has no opportunity to introduce counter proof, nor 

 even to analyze in written argument the evidence so submitted. 



The United States Government therefore protests against the con- 

 sideration by the Arbitrators of any evidence or proofs which in their 

 judgment should, under the true interpretation of the treaty, have 

 been embraced in the original Case of Her Majesty's Government. 



The only qualification of the unusual advantage which Her Majesty's 

 Government would gain from the permission to lay before the Arbitra- 

 tors allegations and proofs which the United States have had no op- 

 portunity to answer, comes from the circumstance that most of the 

 new matter referred to is of so little materiality or of such small pro- 

 bative force, that the privilege of answering is of less importance than 

 it would otherwise be. There is a failure everywhere in this last doc- 

 ument, as there was in the principal Case of Great Britain (including 

 as part of it the separate report of the British Commissioners), either 

 squarely to assert any proposition vital to the merits of the contro- 

 versy, or to attempt directly to maintain it by evidence or argument. 



There are, aside from the matters relating to sovereignty and juris- 

 diction, several material questions in this controversy, substantially 

 stated in the Case of the United States. 



First. Do the Alaskan fur-seals, under the necessary physical con- 

 ditions of their life, habitually so return to the Pribilof Islands and so 

 submit themselves there to the control of the proprietors of those 

 places as to enable the latter to make them the subjects of an impor- 

 tant economical husbandry in substantially the same way and with 

 the same benefits as in the case of domestic animals? 



Second. Has the Government of the United States, the occupant 



