ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 31 



based upon, if you please, the approval of tlie Governmeut of Canada. 

 1 suppose it is quite manifest all along liere that the approval of the 

 Government of Great Britain to any measures of restriction upon 

 pelagic sealing were kept dependent upon the wishes of the Govern- 

 ment of Canada. That is the fact which made Mr. Blaine somewhat 

 impatient. I do not argue now whether he was properly or improperly 

 impatient; but it was the fact. 



The President. We have only before us in this matter the British 

 Government. We are not to enter into a consideration of the motives 

 u])on which the British Government decided what course to adopt. 

 W^hether the Canadian Government has an influence upon the deci- 

 sions of the Imperial Government is a matter of interior consideration 

 by the British Government itself; but we have as a party only the 

 British Government. 



Mr. Carter. That is quite true. I am not giving any material con- 

 sequence to the consideration whether the Government of Great 

 Britain awaited the action of the Government of Canada, or made its 

 own action dependent upon the Government of Canada, except in this 

 point of view, so far as it explains the temper, the disposition of the 

 corresponding diplomats, and the grounds and reasons why one side 

 may have thought that they had a complaint against the other for 

 delay. It is pertinent in that point of view, and in that point of view 

 alone, as I conceive. 



Senator Morgan. I beg leave to say this in defence of my position : 

 Mr. Carter read with great emphasis this clause from the letter of Sir 

 Julian to Mr. Blaine on page 455 : 



"It has been admitted from the commencement that the sole object 

 of the negotiation is the preservation of the fur-seal species for the 

 benefit of mankind, and that no considerations of advantage to any 

 particular nation or of benetit to any private interest should enter into 

 the question." 



And tlien the learned counsel was proceeding to argue that under 

 the terms of this convention the fur-seals in Bering Sea resorting to 

 the Pribilof Islands were exposed during the most dangerous period 

 of the year to extermination ])y the Canadian sealers. He, as I under- 

 stood, inferred from that that Iler Majesty's Government had changed 

 its ground upon the question of the duty of both Governments to pre- 

 serve the seal herds from extermination. 



Mr. Carter. I beg pardon ; I did not intend to so argue. I see no 

 evidence here that the Government of Great Britain at any time 

 changed, at least, its avowed ground, that the prime object of these 

 negotiations was to preserve the fur-seal from extinction. That ground 

 as avowed by them at first continued to be avowed until the last. 

 Whether the measures which they actually suggested, or the measures 

 which they were willing to accede to, were such as we might expect 

 from a Government which took that ground, and made that avowal, 

 is a matter about which different opinions may be entertained; but 

 that they ever changed their ground in reference to the necessity of 

 protecting the fur-seal I do not think. It is very far from any inten- 

 tion of mine to make any such assertion. I make the contrary asser- 

 tion, in reference to the avowed ground of the British Government. 



Mr. Blaine, after this letter from which I have read extracts, of May 

 29th, addresses another letter to Sir Julian Pauncefote before he had 

 received a reply, which was this: 



