WHEN rOINT FIVE OF ARTICLE VI OF THE TREATY WAS UNDER CON- 

 SIDERATION SENATOR MORGAN DELIVERED THE FOLLOWING 

 OPINION: 



I beg' leave to submit the following' additional statements and argu- 

 iiieuts which i think are sufficient to establish that the i)i'cscii[)tive 

 rights of Kussia and the United States, in respect of the fur-seals that 

 liabituiilly resort to liering Sea, are to be safely based upon the continued 

 aud unquestioned usage of both countries, as well as upon the peculiar 

 characteristics of these animals. 



And I will endeavor to state the reasons that conii)el nie to hold, on 

 these and some other grounds, that the United States have a riglit 

 of property and i)rotection in these animals. 



I have already presented to the tribunnl, on a previous day, the views 

 I entertain as to the true history of the claims set up by Kussia relat- 

 ing to the exclusive right to control and protect the fur industry in 

 Bering Sea, and have endeavored to state generally the foundations in 

 law and fact upon which Eussia rested her claims. I will now again 

 brietiy review some of those facts as 1 believe they exist, and will refer 

 to others, and endeavor to connect them with the doctrines of the law 

 which I think are clearly applicable to establish a right of pioperty in 

 the fur-seals that is well founded, both as a right by prescription and 

 a right growing out of the useful aud domestic nature of these aninuils. 



The Kussian Government exercised the right to own and control the 

 seals that resorted to Bering Sea, and made temporary grants to its 

 subjects of the right to take them in those waters. 



It may be said that this was an assumption of riglit on the part of 



Eussia not suppcntcd by any rule of international law. It was not 



more distinctly an assumption of right than was the title to the islands, 



based on the discovery of them by a Ilussian sulyect. In both cases 



a. native sovereignty was displaced to make room tor the claims of 



Biussia, bficked by superior force. The processes of appropriation Avere 



the same in refcrejice to the seals and seal fisheries as they were in 

 52 



