592 ORAL ARGUMENT OF CHRISTOPHER ROBINSON, Q. C. 



heard of a wild horse that once was a tame horse, or of a wild cow that 

 once was a tame cow. I do not think the thing is possible. That is all 

 that can be said. 



With great deference, one could suggest excellent and natural reasons 

 for it. I do not think a man who has bought a valuable animal and 

 paid a large price for it loses his property in it siraiily because he treats 

 it brutally and creates an aversion in the animal to him, and it therefore, 

 becomes ferocious. We know that some horses are very dangerous, so 

 in the case of Texas steers which occasionally roam the Streets of New 

 York and frequently do damage, but I never heard that they were wild 

 animals, though they are intinitely more dangerous and destructive 

 than many. 1 can say nothing more as to that. With regard to the 

 question you have put to me I reply there is no possibility in law of mak- 

 ing a tame animal wild, while it is clearly possible to make a wild one 

 tame. That is the only answer that I can give. 



Then again, let me put what has been put by my learned friends 

 within a very short time, and which I only advert to for the sake of a 

 few remarks. What would be the result of this property being in the 

 United States ? They claim the finding that these seals are the property 

 of the United States, which must mean that it is prohibited to all per- 

 sons to destroy them. 



I seldom venture to prophesy, and, I should not dream of doing it 

 now if I were not prophesying in the Company of a jierson in whom I 

 have the confidence that I have in Senator Morgan; but a speech of 

 his was read here some time ago in which he says that the Pacific 

 fisheries are destined to become more important than the Atlantic. For 

 myself, having been to that coast several times, I may say that I think 

 they will, and may become so in a shorter time than people who have 

 never seen that part of the country are inclined to believe. When they 

 do become of importance the seals in all probability will go, and no 

 laws will save them, for the reason that public opinion will be against 

 them. Whenever the seals come into conflict with the food fishes in that 

 part of the world the fate of the seals is decreed; no regulations, no 

 laws, no statutes, will ever be available or efiectual to save them. 



The President. — Perhaps you will have to consider that feature of 

 the case on the question of Eegulations"? 



Mr. ItOBiNSON. — I am bringing it to the attention of the Tribunal for 

 that simple reason. It was well said, I forget by whom, that laws were 

 like water, they could never rise higher than their source, that source 

 being public oi)inion; and it makes no difference what Statutes are on 

 the Statute-book, or what is the niunicii^al law of any country. If 

 that law has for its object to protect seals as against a food fish, in that 

 part of the country the law, cannot be enforced because public opinion 

 will be against it. 



What is the eifect of what our friends are asking this Tribunal, to 

 declare? That these seals are their property? It is quite impossible, 

 if they are their property, to get rid of the effect of that finding, 

 because they are their property wherever they go and whatever they 

 are doing. No man has a right to destroy them. He must answer to 

 their owners if he does. Now, if they should become injurious to the 

 fisheries industry as they possibly may — and I say possibly because, 

 confident as I am of the prediction alluded to, it is still only a possibil- 

 ity — we know that the canning industries are enormous and are grow- 

 ing year by year; and we know that the seals feed and feed in increas- 

 ing quantities upon the fish which support those industries. Now, sup- 

 pose the seals should gather at the mouth of the Fraser, where some of 



