53 



reference to the islands, viz, discovery, claim, occiijiatioTi, and develop- 

 ment. Exclnsive use and the acquiescence of other civilized powers 

 were the attendant facts that established the right of projjerty in both 

 cases. 



As all international laAV grows out of custom and has no other root, 

 it can not be denied that the right of Kussia to appropriate and protect 

 this herd of fur-seals has been established by citstom and maintained 

 by constant and exclusive use. Certainly no other nation in its sov- 

 ereign character has claimed these seals or denied the right of Russia 

 to their exclusive ownership. When Great Britain, in 1825, was treat- 

 ing with Russia for an ojien sea, free navigation, and the rights of fish- 

 ing in those waters, she set up no claim to a commou right of hunting- 

 seals or fur-bearing animals in those regions. Russia went on renewing 

 her charters for these purposes to her subjects, and Great Britain stood 

 by and made no assertion of such right for herself or her subjects for 

 about a half century. Nearly a century elapsed after the colonization 

 of the islands by Russia before any Britisli subject opposed the claim 

 of Russia and the United States, her vendee, to a property right in the 

 seals that habitually resorted to Bering Sea. There are few custom- 

 ary rights that have a surer foundation in usage or upon the doctrine 

 of acquiescence than the world has accorded to Russia in respect of 

 the right to the fur-seals resorting to Bering Sea. 



The long acquiescence of Great Britain in this claim of ownership in 

 seals by Russia was not only without objection, protest, or diplomatic 

 suggestion to the contrary, but that Government has encouiaged her 

 own people to base an extensive and valuable industry upon the 

 material provided by Russia and regularly supplied to them from her 

 fur-seal husbandry. 



It is now too late for Great Britain tosay that Russia and the United 

 States mistook the law of nations when they set up rights of proj)erty 

 in fur-seals. Ninety years of acquiescence attended with no harm to 

 British people or interests, but with great benefits to both, is time 

 enough in wliicli to establish the consent of Great Britain that live 

 seals resorting to Bering Sea are property, as much so as dead ones are 

 that are slain by Biitish subjects. But the acquiescence of Great 

 Britain is not needed to establish the proposition that there is property 

 in live seals and that it exists ratioiie soli. 



