ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 205 



tliat you are bound — bound in the exercise of your just powers — to 

 repress this pelagic sealing." I think they would have a right to insist 

 upon tliat. 



The President. I would call that a legal right. 



Mr. Carter. Ko; I do not quite consider it a perfect legal right 

 because it might be said to these people: '-ISTo, we have never uncler- 

 taken to protect this herd everywhere on the seas. We executed to 

 you this lease. You knew what the laws were. You knew what pro- 

 tection you would get. You did not ask for anything more. Having 

 accepted your lease under those circumstances you must be content 

 with it." 



The President. In fact they have not asked for any more? They 

 have not asked for an act of Congress, a statute against American 

 pelagic sealing? 



Mr. Carter. I cannot speak upon that point. I know of no evidence 

 in the Case. 



Mr. Phelps. They have. 



Senator Morgan. I would like to say, Mr. Carter, in that connection 

 that the number of seals that is permitted to the lessees to be taken is 

 regulated by the lease and by the law. Under the lease of 1870 they 

 were permitted to take not exceeding 100,000 seals annually, which 

 number might be reduced by the Government of the United States 

 without any liability whatever for damages, according to their estimate 

 and opinion as to what public policy required. Under the lease of 18110 

 they were allowed to take not exceeding 00,000 under the same condi- 

 tions. So that whatever number the United States lixes annually or 

 at any time of the year they choose to fix, it is the number that they 

 may take and is the number they have agreed to abide by. They 

 have no right to any greater number than the United States chooses to 

 award to them. Therefore they cannot have any interest direct or indi- 

 rect in the question whether we are preserving the seal herds or not if 

 they get their number. 



The President. They have no direct right to the average of the 

 herd? 



Senator Morgan. ISTot at all — not the slightest. 



Mr. Carter. I should still be disposed to agree with the suggestion 

 of the learned President even under those conditions. 



Senator Morgan. That there would be a moral right? 



Mr. Carter. That there would be a moral right. 



Senator Morgan. I do not think so. 



Mr. Carter. That there would be a moral right in the lessees to call 

 upon the United States to exercise that authority to preserve this herd ; 

 for they might argue : If you did exercise that autliority this herd would 

 be in a condition in a few years to give us, instead of 00,000, 100,000. 



Senator Morgan. If you will allow me, the Congress of the United 

 States which has but recently adjourned has made a provision of law 

 by which all of the statutes that now apply to the Bering Sea shall be 

 extended in their full force over any area of waters that might be deter- 

 mined by this Tribunal as being within the prohibition or within the 

 regulations which they have prescribed. The Congress of tlie United 

 States have prepared in advance so as to extend their penal and other 

 laws over the area that this Tribunal is to determine upon. It has done 

 all that can be done under the circumstances. 



Sir Charles Russell. That was merely a ])rovision to enable the 

 United States to give legal effect to any regulations, if any, that should 

 be enjoined by this Tribunal. 



