ORAL ARGUMENT OF FREDERICK R. COUDERT, ESQ. 303 



It is nuiiecessary to add tliat the uiere passage of a law is au assump- 

 tion of right — au exercise of jurisdiction — and it ma lies very little dif- 

 ference so far as the general principle is concerned whether that law 

 be applicable and may be extended to others than nationals. So far 

 as the main proposition is concerned, of the assumption of a right, if 

 France passes certain laws to protect certain fisheries and if France 

 confines that with an idea, real or mistaken, that it may not go beyond 

 a prohibition to its own citizens — if it pass that law, by the mere pas- 

 sage of that law it exercises a jurisdiction and asserts a right because 

 the laws of civiHzed nations are not made merely to harass their own 

 citizens. The theory is protection to citizens in exchange for service, 

 but what kind of law would that be which France or Great Britain 

 would pass to protect the seal, or the oyster or the coral, which would 

 be directed only against its nationals because it had no right to touch 

 any other trespassers than those? 



Of course they would be worse than nugatory, they would be worse 

 than futile. They would be arbitrary and cruel. No nation under- 

 stands this better than Great Britain. No nation has ever gone further 

 than, — I may say that perhaps no nation has ever gone so far as, Great 

 Britain in the assertion of the riglit to protect all round the globe (for 

 her possessions extend all round the globe) the man who owes allegiance 

 to her flag and obedience to her law. Other nations may have found 

 that she pushed these pretensions and claims perhaps to an extravagant 

 extent; but to her credit be it said, that the British citizen was just as 

 sure of protection from outrage by foreign Governments as the citizen 

 of Eomewhen he could say "I am a Roman citizen," and, when he had 

 said that, the hand of the torturer was stayed and the arm of the tor- 

 turer was paralysed. So with Great Britain at all times. She has had 

 one rule, viz, that there was no nation on the globe great enough to 

 oppress her citizens. Are we to be told now, and is it seriously to be 

 argued that Great Britain passes laws oppressive, repressive and cruel 

 which are to aj^ply only to her citizens, and leave the rest of the world 

 to perpetrate the wrong which she is trying to suppress? Yet that is 

 the argument, if our learned and distinguished friends on the other side 

 are right. 



They tell us, and they repeat it in this argument, for instance, taking 

 Canada, in their argument on page 43: 



"The Fisheries Act", they say, "prohibits the killing of whales, seals, or por- 

 poises with explosive instriinients, and during sealfishiug time from disturbing or 

 injuring- any sedentary seal tishery or from frightening the shoals of seals coming 

 into such tishery." 



Just what we are trying to do, to prevent the destruction of the shoals 

 that are coming to our land. 



The United States statement in respect of this Statute is that it prohibits all 

 persons without prescribing any marine limit; and the inference drawn is that it 

 applies to all persons on the high seas, including foreigners. 



I need not pursue this. There are a number of other cases cited by 

 way of illustration, and the distinction is made in this case and in the 

 case of Chili, Japan, Panama and other nations, that these only api:)ly 

 to nationals and not to foreigners. I do not believe, may it please you, 

 Mr. President and the other members of this Tribunal, that our learned 

 friends would go to the extent of saying that anything which is forbid- 

 den a British subject is permissible to a Frenchman or an Italian, and 

 I shall not be satisfied that that is their view of the case until they 

 have stated it. I will not believe that two ships may go to any of 

 these fisheries and one ship be arrested because it is a British ship, 

 arrested by a British revenue cutter or man-of-war, and that the other 



