3. That the United States should therefore pay the value of British vessels seized for killing fur seals in the open sea. 4. That the value of these vessels and their equipment should be ascertained by an acceptable jury of experts, the question of the degree to which, if at all, contingent or possible profits of future cruises should be considered to be determined by the Tribunal of Arbitration. 5. That the "protection and preservation of the fur seal" is a matter of importance to the interests of the civilized world. 6. That the question of the regulations necessary to this end should be left to a jury of natural history experts, familiar with the habits of marine mammalia and competent to sift evidence concerning them. 7. That in case absolute or virtual prohibition be found necessary to this end, as claimed by the American commission, such prohibition be ordered by the Tribunal, this order to have the force of international law, over all nations consenting to the decision of the Tribunal. 8. In such case Canada should yield the possession of certain recognized rights, inasmuch as prohibition of pelagic sealing, with protection on land and sea, is tantamount to ownership of the herd by the United States. 9. The legitimate money value of such rights, ascertained by a proper jury or tribunal, the legal considerations governing which to be determined and laid down by the high tribunal itself, should be paid by the United States. 10. That such decision should establish the precedent for an international game law, whereby all animals, feral or domesticated, crossing limits of territorial jurisdic tion in food-seeking or in annual migrations would be protected in the same degree as if their habitat were confined to the territory of a single nation. Such precedents would govern the mismanaged fisheries of the Great Lakes of America, the salmon fisheries of the Rhine, the pearl beds of Ceylon, as well as the fur seal and sea otter herds of Bering Sea. Such an international agreement for the protection of valuable animals would be a natural sequence to those agreements or canons which have striven to abolish the slave-trade, which have exterminated piracy and checked privateering, which have made foreign travel possible, and which are humanizing the terrible art of war. "Salus populi, suprema lex." The ultimate purpose of all statutes is the good of the people, not of one nation alone, but of all the earth. Such an ultimate agreement is indeed foreshadowed in the regulations for " the protection and preservation of the fur seal" and in the provision for the revision of these regulations at the end of five years by the nations directly concerned. This precedent may indeed prove valuable in future efforts at arbitration in the interests of humanity. If so, it is the sole worthy result of the Paris Tribunal of Arbitration, and its one contribution to international law. Such a decision as that above indicated would have been consistent with itself. It would have "protected and preserved" the fur seal herd-the only important matter at issue from a financial standpoint. It would have done full justice to the rights of both Canada and the United States while it would have paved the way for the development of still broader principles. Such a decision would have given strength and dignity to the plan of arbitration. This summary of a vast and complicated case is of necessity a very brief one, too brief to deal justly with all its varied phases. We may, however, deduce from it certain lessons, as to the organization of similar tribunals in the future. In case of future international tribunals of arbitration : 1. There must be an agreement as to all facts in question based on the most thorough investigations of competent experts in the subject in question, leaving to the tribunal solely the decision of the legal or international bearings of these facts with their financial estimate if necessary; or else, 2. We must grant to such international tribunal every safeguard found necessary to the highest courts of law, including time to mature its deliberations and investigations, power to call for persons and papers wherever situated, power to cross-examine witnesses, to sift evidence and to punish perjury or diplomacy or any other attempt to deceive the court as to question of fact. If the principle of arbitration is to win the support of the two great Anglo-Saxon peoples its operations in practice must be worthy of their respect. It must indeed It must be be the Supreme Court of Christendom. composed of judges only, not of warring advocates, and these judges must be as great in the science of jurisprudence as the generals they replace have been great in the art of war. They must never be deceived as to fact or law and their verdict must be the final word of an enlightened civilization as to the subject in question. |