308 ORAL ARGUMENT OF FREDERICK R. COUDERT, ESQ. 



as those sliips come from Canadian ports and profess to sail under the 

 British flag, I will S])eak of the business simply as Canadian sealing 

 and a Canadian industry, if it deserves that name. The question then 

 arises. How is it that after this Agreement had beeu substantially 

 made, the efforts, protracted and zealous of both sides, should have 

 resulted in a miscarriage? 



We have the answer in a letter which I desire to read, because it is 

 very important. It has not yet been read and, in connection with my 

 remarks upon the facts, it nmy be valuable. It shows whence the 

 opposition comes, and upon what the opposition was grounded; per- 

 hai)s it would not be i)ossible to present the case of Canada in stronger 

 and clearer terms than it is presented in this letter. I believe it is read 

 now for the first time. It is found at page 213 of the Papers presented 

 to the British Parliament, — the Appeiulix, Volume 3, to the British 

 Case. It is dated Ottawa, July the 7th, 1888. It is signed by Mr. George 

 E. Foster, Acting Minister of Marine and Fisheries. Of course, the 

 statements emanating from such a source are to be taken with resi)ect; 

 and everything this gentleman can be supposed to have stated of his 

 own knowledge must be taken as true. He was speaking, as he had a 

 right and, indeed, a duty to si)eak, in favour of his own i)eople and 

 of what he conceived, no doubt, to be a legitiiiuite industry, in resist- 

 ance to measures which might, he presumed, be to the detriment of 

 his own nationals. 



Tlie undersigned has the houor to submit for the consideration of the Governor 

 General in Council the following observations in respect to a despatch from I^ord 

 Knntsford to Lord Lansdowne, dated the 8th March, 1888, and enclosing a proj)osal 

 from Mr. Secretary Bayard for the establishment of a close season for seal fishing in 

 and near Kehring Sea, to extend from the 15th April to the 1st November of eacti 

 year, and to be operative in the waters lying north of latitude 50"^ north, and between 

 longitude 160'-' west, and, longitude 170'-' east from Greenwich. 



The Court will see what a wide space that covered, and what a broad 

 period of time- 

 Before entering on the discussion of this proposition, the Minister desires to call 

 attention to a sentence in a letter from Lord Salisbury to Sir L. S. West, dated the 

 22nd February, 1888 and forming a part of the above mentioned despatch, in which 

 Lord Salisbury says: — "The United States Minister called today at the Foreign 

 Office, and spoke to me about the question of the fur seals in Behring Sea. He said 

 that the difficulties in regard to the seal lislieries in that sea were mainly connected 

 "with the question of the close time, and that no attempt had been made by the author- 

 ities of tlie United States to stop the tishing there of any vessels at the time when it 

 ■was legitimate." 



This clearly implies that Lord Salisbury had been led by the United States Minister 

 to believe 



This is a com]>liment to our brother Phelps, of which he ought to be 

 well j)roud. If he could imluce Lord Salisbury to believe anytliing that 

 was not true or which he ought not to believe — then he is fully up to 

 his reputation for exquisite diplomacy. 



This clearly implies that Lord Salisbury had been led by the United States Minis- 

 ter to believe that there is a fixed close and open season for the killing of seals in 

 Behring Sea, which is connnon to all vessels of all nationalities, and that during the 

 open season these nuiy legitimately and without molestation pursue the business of 

 catching seals. 



The facts of the case appear to be that Avithiu the limits of the Territory of Alaska, 

 ■which by the United States contention includes the waters of Behriug's Sea as far 

 westward as a line drawn from a point in Bering's Straits south-west to the meridian 

 of longitude 173'^ west, the killiug of fur-bearing animals, amongst which the seal 

 is included, is prohibited by law, that repeated warnings to this effect have beeu 

 given by the United States authorities, and that vessels both of Canada and the 

 United States have within the past two years been seized and condemned for killing 

 seals within these waters. It also appears that ou the Islands of St. George and St. 



