176 



were protected by that care, industry, and self-denial wliich can be 

 called into activity only by the reasons which the institution of property 

 offers. It is because the Liei.i;hboring nations and none others can ex- 

 ercise these qualities and thus perform the service of preservation. It 

 is because they fall under the general propositiou that where any useful 

 thing is dependent for its existence upon the care and self-denial of 

 particuhir men, those men have a proi)erty in the thing. 



That the United States, by its ownership of Pribilof Islands, is in a 

 condition to reap the benefit of these animals, and preserve the race, and 

 that no other nation, by any action it may alone take, can acconjplish 

 these beneficial results, and that the preservation of the race does not 

 admit of their being taken at any other place than at their breeding 

 grounds, are conclusive reasons why the law should recognize its claim 

 of property. 



Blackstone, observing that there are things in which a permanent 

 property may subsist, but which would be found without a proprietor 

 had not the wisdom of the law provided a remedy to obviate this in- 

 convenience, says that "the legislature of England has universally pro- 

 moted the grand ends of civil society, the peace and security of individ- 

 uals, by steadily pursuing that wise and orderly maxim of assigning 

 to everything capable of ownersliip a legal and determinate oivnerj' 

 Chapter on Property. 



Sir Henry Maine, in his Treatise on Ancient Law, ch. 8, p. 319, thus 

 states the principle: "It is only when the rights of property gained a 

 sanction from long practical inviolability, and when the vast majority of 

 objects of employment have been subjected to private ownership, that 

 mere possession is allowed to invest the first possessor with dominion 

 over commodities over which no prior pro[)rietorship has been asserted. 

 The sentiment in wliich this doctrine originated is absolutely irreconcil- 

 able with that iufre(][uency and uncertainty of proi)rietary rights which 

 distinguish the beginning of civilization. The true basis seems to be 

 not a distinctive bias towards the institution of property, but a i)resump- 

 tion, arising out of the long continuance of that institution, that every- 

 thing ought to have an owner. When possession is taken of a h'es 

 nullins,'' that is, of an object, which is not, or has never been, reduced 

 to dominion, the possessor is permitted to become proprietor from a 

 feeling that all valuable things are naturally subjects of an exclusive 

 enjoyment, and that in the given case there is no one to invest with 

 the rights of iiroperty, excoiit the occupant. The occux)aut, iu short, 



