ORAL ARGUMENT OF SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q. C. M. P. 237 



proposition is that you are not to kill females; tliat you are to take the 

 increase of males; that you are not to do anything which will diminish 

 the birth-rate of the particular class of animals with which you are 

 dealing. 



Now, I want to know where has any municipal law of any country, 

 except the special Statute of the United States in relation to female 

 seals, prohibited the killing of females: — any municipal law, to begin 

 with! I do not know of any. I know of no system of municipal law 

 wliich Inys down any such rule. I do know that, both in hunting and 

 shooting, owners of land do exercise a certain discrimination in pre- 

 serving a certain proportion of females; but whoever suggested that it 

 would be wrong to kill a doe, or th;it it would be wrong to kill a hen- 

 ])heasant, or a hind, or wrong to kill any but cock-grouse or cock- 

 pheasants? 



There is no such principle that I know of to be found in any munici- 

 pal law. Is there any such principle to be found in international law? 

 Has international law ever affirmed in any sliape or form the proposi- 

 tion that there was something intrinsically wrong, morally wrong, or 

 criminal, in the fact of killing a female in any species of animal to be 

 found anywhere on the face of the earth? I know of none. 



Senator Morgan. — I think all the game laws applicable to what we 



call terrestrial animals — birds and deer and the like — have very 



1004 distinct reference to protecting the breeding season or nesting 



season. I supi^ose that is for the purpose of protecting the 



females that they may rear their young. 



Sir Charles Eussbll. — I quite agree; undoubtedly, that is the 

 object of a close season — not to interfere with the process of nature in 

 producing their young; but there is no question of property involved; 

 it is a question of municipal regulations. What I am now dealing 

 with is this appeal to law — either municipal or international law — and 

 herein I do not find any principle which treats it as a crime or a wrong 

 to kill a female. 



I want to follow this reference of my learned friend a little more. 

 At page 58 of the i)rinted Argument this point of usufruct is developed, 

 and the whole argument at this point is addressed to ownership not 

 being absolute. He is asking what is the extent of the dominion which 

 is given by the law of nature to the owner of property. He there says. 



In the common apprehension the title of the possessor is absolute, and enables 

 him to denl with his property as he pleases, and even, if he pleases, to destroy it. 

 This notion, sufficiently accurate lor most of the common purposes of life, and for 

 all controversies between man and man, is very far from being true. No one, 

 indeed, would assert that he had a moral right to waste or destroy any useful thing; 

 but this limitation of power is, perhaps, commonly viewed as a mere moral or 

 religious precejit — 



So far I have nothing to say against it. We are in the region of 

 moral law: we are in the region of ethics, and I have nothing more 

 to say. 



for the violation of which man is responsible only to his Maker, and of which 

 human law takes no notice. 



That, he says, is the common notion, but he goes on in tlie next sen- 

 tence to say that it is a mistaken notion. 



The truth is far otherwise. This precept is the basis of much municipal law, and 

 has a widely-reaching operation in international jurisprudence. 



Thus he immediately slips away from the domain of ethics, and he 

 aflirms that, though the common idea is that this is a merely moral law, 



