at all? They would have simply said 54 degrees 40 minutes, and that would, by itself, have given Prince of Wales Island. But they have a subsequent clause, which gives Prince of Wales Island in its entirety to the Russians. Therefore, I think on this point it is hardly necessary to dwell further. It seems to me a perfectly clear one, and I think what Mr. Taylor said yesterday was perfectly fair about this. I think he introduced 54 degrees 40 minutes for some reason I did not appreciate at the time, and I have not had the opportunity yet of seeing the note of his speech. Still, he did so, and I think he agrees with us in this, that when you find Portland Canal, and you have there the description of Prince of Wales Island, you are to draw your line from the southernmost point of Prince of Wales Island to whatever you find to be the entrance to the Portland Canal-the Portland Channel. I think he said so yesterday, and I think in that he and I are agreed, at all events, though I did not understand Mr. Watson to argue it in quite the same way. Well, then, if that is so, we get to the end of the first three points. We Now, the next question is, to what point on the 56th parallel is the line to be drawn from the head of the Portland Channel, and what course should it follow between these points? Now, upon this point what we say is this, and our case is, I think, a very simple one. say that when you get to the head of Portland Channel you must draw your line to the 56th parallel where it meets the ridge of mountains which you select as being mountains which fulfil the conditions of the IIIrd Article of the Treaty, and I do not believe if we were to be at it for another month you would find any other practical method of solving the Treaty. It is said that you must take the line much further than the head of Portland Canal because it is admitted that it does not go within 15 miles in a straight direction-within 15 miles of the 56th degree of latitude. I deny that there is anything in the Treaty to compel you to take it in that way. The 56th parallel is put in, but the real description is the head of Portland Canal, and the way it is argued, or was argued by Mr. Taylor, certainly deserves some criticism. Mr. Taylor says that the word 66 passe " has a peculiar meaning. He says that "passe" takes you on to the 56th degree. He says that the word "passe " is purposely used, so as to get over the difficulty of following the water. But what is the direction you get, even assuming that is so, which I do not admit for a moment? Here is what he says: 572 Why, the word "passage" was put into the Treaty. And why did they put it there? Simply to make it absolutely certain that if the channel stopped 10 or 15 miles short of the 56th degree the passage would carry you up to the 56th degree, and the line, being coterminous with the passage, would go to the call, the 56th degree. I submit with great deference to everyone who shall disagree with me in reference to that, that while it is true that out of almost every contract, or will, or paper drawn by human being you may by ingenuity and skill evolve constructions which are startling in their consequences and support them by the most ingenious reasonings, but however ingenious that reasoning may be I come back to the simple words of the Treaty. Yes; but if you come back to the simple words of the Treaty, the Treaty simply says "along Portland Canal." It uses, no doubt, the phrase 56th parallel. Why this is to take you in this easterly direction is a matter that I fail entirely to apprehend. Through what is it to go? There is no channel after that. Mr. Watson implies that there may be a valley-I am not sure-I do not know whether there is or not, or whether the negotiators thought there was. I believe some of the maps, as a matter of fact, represent that there are two valleys which you may go through with this new idea of the word passe" to the 56th degree. 66 Now, this a matter of some importance on the subsequent branch of the case. You will notice there if you take up the largest of Vancouver's charts and proceed to draw this line as Mr. Watson would have you draw it, from the end of Portland Canal to the east along the 56th parallel you must go right through the mountains. The PRESIDENT. We have that before us. Sir EDWARD CARSON. And that is "la passe" right through the mountains. Now let me show the Tribunal the importance of that on Mr. Watson's argument, with which I shall have to deal later, as regards the mountains. He says the negotiators looked upon these as real defined mountains. That was the whole burden of his argument. I call in aid this very argument of Mr. Watson's, that if his construction of this question as to passing on to this 56th degree is right it is plain they looked upon these as conventional mountains, upon which I shall have a good deal to say when I come to that part of the case. But why you are to go and break through what he calls a definite, defined range, which is to be read into this Treaty, as I shall show you afterwards, why you are to break through that for the purpose of afterwards bringing it back again and then going on is a matter I fail entirely to understand, but Mr. Watson further said that the negotiators themselves said you were to go to the east when you got to the head of Portland Canal. Now, my Lord, I should like to examine that very extraordinary statement. Of course, if that were true, it would go a very long way, and now what does he rely on? On p. 401 of his Argument he quotes a passage which your Lordships will find in the British Case Appendix, p. 71: Fo these reasons the Russian Plenipotentiaries have proposed as the limits on the coast of the continent, to the south, the Portland Channel, whose head is about the 56th degree of north latitude, and to the east the chain of mountains which follow, at a very small distance, the windings of the coast. That means the eastern frontier boundary for Russia, but Mr. Watson dwelt eloquently upon the fact that that demonstrates that when you get to the Portland Channel you are to go to the east, but that is not what the passage is referring to at all. Here is what Mr. Watson says: Allow me to call your attention to Faden's map, which Mr. Canning said was the most reliable map that was out. 573 You remember that map, upon which I shall have something to say presently. There is the head of Portland Channel [indicating on map]. You go on north until you come on to the 56th parallel and the chain of mountains. Was it because indicating on map], the Russians designated it as a chain of mountains? That is Map No. 10, Sir, in the British Case, and I do ask your Lordship to follow me for a moment in reference to this. That is from the head of Portland Canal [indicating on map], you run up the 56th parallel, and then you take a chain of mountains. And how do the Russians say that you take the chain of mountains? You take the chain going to the east. You will notice those are the exact words-and to the east the chain of mountains which follows at a very short distance the sinuosities of the coast. The PRESIDENT. It is obvious that is not the meaning of the word in that passage. Sir EDWARD CARSON. Of course not. The PRESIDENT. They are referring to the eastern boundary there. au sud." Sir EDWARD CARSON. Exactly, and I think I shall have to take many passages from Mr. Watson's argument to show that however plausible it may seem when it is being delivered with the great force and eloquence which he displayed before us, when you come to examine it you will find in some places a fallacy of the same kind underlying it if you investigate the portions and the passages that he read, and I may tell you the great importance of this is this, that Mr. Watson all through the course of his argument was leading up to the one point, and it is the only point which carries the American case the full way, and it is this: that you are to read into this Treaty a definite specified defined line of mountains and whether the mountains are there or not there, you are to take that line as the boundary between the two countries at the present time, as being the meaning of the negotiators. My Lord, he has strained passage after passage, as I shall show you, to try to get to that result. Now, another way in which the same point is made is in the United States' Case. I am not sure it is made in Mr. Watson's argument; I think he did make it, but I have not found it up to the present moment, but at all events it was made in the Case. In the account Mr. Middleton gives in his interview with Mr. Canning, he says that Mr. Canning explained to him that the Treaty said that from the top of the Portland Canal they were to go east. Well, all I can say is that if we are to act in that way in construing a Treaty, that somebody goes to somebody else and tells him what the Treaty did, and that somebody else reports his view and his recollection of what took place at that interview, I think it would be much better to have no Treaties at all. It is the evidence of the recollection of another person as to a long and complicated Treaty which he tells us without going through the words of the Treaty at all, and you are asked upon that to construe the Treaty. Well, I said yesterday I put in a plea for the Treaty itself, as I do all along in the course of his argument. Mr. AYLESWORTH. Mr. Middleton's description of the line is that it turns east when it reaches 56 degrees. Sir EDWARD CARSON. Well, there is another version that shows again the danger of going away from the Treaty itself. The PRESIDENT. Which is an impossibility. Sir EDWARD CARSON. That, of course, is impossible. And, now, my Lord, Mr. Watson made another very curious mistake in 574 this matter. He criticized our line; and what was his criticism upon it? He made this criticism The PRESIDENT. As to its coming down south, you mean? Sir EDWARD CARSON. He said," But look at their line," and he says it descends, and at another page (p. 396) he says, "They make it run south from the Portland Canal." He really said it so often S. Doc. 162, 58-2, vol 7—11 that I tried to find an explanation of how he was ever misled into that, and I found it, I think, in this, that he had the map turned upside down. The PRESIDENT. Yes, I think that confused him at the time. The map was east and west, instead of north and south. Sir EDWARD CARSON. The map was running east and west that he put up there, and when he looked at our line he thought it was the most preposterous one he had ever seen, because it was running south; as a matter of fact it is running north, of course, because it was below the 56th degree of parallel. Mr. LODGE. Your line when it leaves the point of Portland Channel there, much where you think it ought to start, surely does not run north; it runs west, does it not? Sir EDWARD CARSON. No, it runs north. Mr. Rooт. A few degrees north of west, 10 minutes north, something of that kind. It runs north about 5 miles in 57. Sir EDWARD CARSON. That is what it does, but it certainly is not an apt description to say it goes south, because certainly then it could not conform with the Treaty, which says it is to go north"au nord "--and really the only answer you can give to this question, however long one may discuss it, and I certainly do not want to be longer than I can help, the only answer you can give is a similar kind of answer to that which is given as to the line between Prince of Wales Island and Portland Channel, “Find your mountains and then draw your line," and, of course, it is very important for Mr. Watson, as his whole theory is based upon what I believe to be an utterly false view of this Treaty, or what I suggest to be an utterly false view of this Treaty, that you have a defined line fixed by the negotiators. That is the reason that he props up his theory from time to time by giving this extravagant and, I think, unnecessary argument to the Tribunal, which is not founded on a true apprehension of the passages to which he himself refers. Now, my Lord, I come to a matter which I know has given me a great deal of trouble in this Case, and that is as to the fifth, sixth and seventh questions. The PRESIDENT. Just wait a moment, Mr. Solicitor. Would you mind my putting before you No. 30 of the American Atlas? Now, in the left hand sheet of that you will find the northern end of Portland Channel. Sir EDWARD CARSON. Yes. The PRESIDENT. Now, we need not discuss your argument, which I thoroughly follow; it is that when you get to the end of the water you go away west a few degrees north until you strike the mountains. That is your point? 575 Sir EDWARD CARSON. Yes. The PRESIDENT. What I want your help about is this: Assuming we are not able to adopt that contention-I am not in the least expressing any opinion of any kind, as you understand, but that we have to get to 56 degrees. Sir EDWARD CARSON. Yes. The PRESIDENT. Have you anything to say as to which valley we should go up? It is such a very small point that it is scarcely worth the breath it takes to put it to you, but one must put it because I do not want it to be said that I did not put it to you. Sir EDWARD CARSON. Exactly. The PRESIDENT. The right-hand valley up which the dotted line is drawn was the right-hand valley which goes a little more to the left until you reach 56 degrees, and if you would just take, Mr. SolicitorGeneral-I have had it looked out for you-if you take the British survey and have it before you at the moment, you will find the right channel, what I will call the easternmost channel, is called Bear River. The westernmost one is called Salmon River? Sir EDWARD CARSON. Yes. The PRESIDENT. And it does look as though Salmon River does seem to come in a little lower down, rather below the head. What I really want to know is, whether you have any view as to whether, if we did not adopt your argument to get to 56 degrees, you ought to go either up the one valley or the other, or on to those mountains which are between the two. It makes so little difference that I say it is scarcely worth while putting it, but I did not like not to ask you. Sir EDWARD CARSON. You only put the difference to me between the two channels? The PRESIDENT. Yes. Sir EDWARD CARSON. Of course, there is a great difference between them, and the whole Argument Have The PRESIDENT. I am not talking about yours; I am assuming we could not adopt your view of going away west from the water. you any view about going up one channel or the other? Sir EDWARD CARSON. I really have not except that I should like to say this, that I protest against going up either of them because, I say, in the first place, I do not think either of these rivers is the Portland Channel. They are rivers flowing into the Porland Channel, but I do not think that they are the Portland Channel. The PRESIDENT. You have answered what I wanted, Mr. Solicitor. Sir EDWARD CARSON. And before I deal with this fifth question, I will follow Mr. Watson in dealing with the three questions 576 practically together, because you cannot go over each of them separately, and I do ask the serious consideration of the Tribunal to some observations that I will make upon the questions themselves. Now the fifth question, Mr. Watson said, meant this: "In other words Question 5 which is submitted to you is virtually, shall the eastern line run around the heads of these bays and inlets? Does it run around the heads of the bays and inlets," and I think your Lordship rather accepted that that was the view of the question. The PRESIDENT. Yes, that was a fair expression of what the ques tion means. Sir EDWARD CARSON. I think, my Lord, what Mr. Watson said is open to several meanings. If he means that the question is that, no matter what the survey showed, and no matter what the topography of the place might be, must it run round the head of every inlet in the whole lisière, then I assent. I say the proper way to put it is, must it necessarily run round the heads of these inlets, and must these bays, ports, inlets, havens, and waters of the ocean be necessarily divided, no matter what the topography of the place shows from the British possessions? Now, my Lord, I submit that it is impossible to so hold if I am right in my construction there, because look what would happen. |