266 ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 



fore, any regulations upon the subject of preserving tlie seals wliicli 

 will Lave any efficiency to that end must be regulations immediately 

 operative so far as the two Governments are concerned. 



And practically no difrtculty will arise if that view is acted upon. 

 If pelagic sealing is prohibited by Great Britain and the United States, 

 no vessel under either of tlieir flags can make its appearance upon the 

 seas for that purpose; and I venture to say that no other nation in the 

 world, after regulations of that character framed by a Tribunal such as 

 this, would allow its Hag to be used for any such purpose. The public 

 sentiment of mankind, authoritatively declared, by a tribunal of this 

 character, composed of representatives selected from different nations, 

 would be everywhere respected. There is no good reason to suppose 

 that there would be an attempt to violate it from any quarter; and if 

 there were any, it would be one which could be, upon very lirm grounds 

 resisted, and the violations would not be frequently repeated. So I 

 conclude that there is no such limitation to be put uj>on the regulations 

 which are to be recommended by the Arbitrators. 



There is another j^oint in which it is intimated in the Argument on 

 the part of Great Britain that these regulations should be linuted. 

 That is that the treaty should be so interpreted as to mean that what- 

 ever regulations are recommended by the Tribunal shall be applicable 

 to Bering Sea only, and not to the North Pacific Ocean. I do not 

 know whether that will be persisted in. It may ])e. The ground sug- 

 gested is that the whole subject of original controversy was the author- 

 ity which the United States claimed it could exercise in Bering Sea; 

 that it did not claim that it had the right to exercise jurisdiction any 

 where else, and that, the whole subject of controversy being thus con- 

 fined to Bering Sea, the scope of the regulations should be in like 

 manner limited, and should not pass those boundaries. I have to say 

 that construction cannot be maintained. There is no such view as that 

 to be gathered from the face of the treaty itself; indeed, upon the face 

 of the treaty, that view is rather to be rejected. 



The language seems to be rather industriously framed to exclude 

 such a view as that. The regulations w^hich are described are not to 

 be regulations operative in Bering Sea, but the Arbitrators are to 

 determine what concurrent regulations "o»ts'yV?e the jurisdictional limits 

 of the respective Governments are necessary, and over what waters 

 such regulations should extend." The whole question of the extent of 

 the waters over which they were to go is left to the Arbitrators without 

 any limitation whatever. 



This interpretation, therefore, if it is to be accepted at all, must be 

 accepted upon the ground that there is some implication which required 

 it. But are we to imply a limitation of that sort"? Such a limitation 

 would be inconsistent with the avowed purpose of both parties from 

 the beginning of this controversy. This plan of regulating pelagic 

 sealing through the instrnmentality of an Arbitration was originally the 

 suggestion of Great Britain; and it was, at the beginning, coupled 

 with a statement of the importance of the preservation of this race of 

 seals — the importance, not only to Great Britain, or to the United 

 States, but to mankind. That was the ground upon which it was orig- 

 inally placed by Sir Julian Pauncefote; and at every stage of this con- 

 troversy, it has been the avowal of those who represented (Jreat Britain 

 that it was lier supreme desire that this race of seals should be pre- 

 served and its exterminaticm pievented. It would be, as it seems to 

 me, an imi)utation upon the sincerity of Great Jiritain to say that her 

 real intention was to extend this protection only in Bering Sea, and 



