62 



way and at times and i)laces Avbeie the practice insures the speedy 

 destruction of the species'? 



The international hiw is a growtli, and it is directed and shaped by 

 the experience and the sedate judgment of mankind. In its growth it 

 hasdisi)hiced many rules and dogmas tliat have proven to be impedi- 

 nients to tlie inarch of civilization. Among the most important of these 

 concrete rulesthat have thus been dethroned is thatlaw of nations which 

 gave to Eussia the right to declare the Sea of Okhotsk and Bering 

 Sea to be closed seas. Tliat was the internatiosial law when they were 

 discovered and occupied by that power. It has since been changed. 



Bussia, in 1824, yielded that claim to the advancing growth of inter- 

 national law, but did not yield to pelagic hunters the right, in those 

 waters, to destroy fur-seals indiscrimiiuitely. IJussia saw that the 

 sentiment of the world, to which she surrendered the right of free 

 fishing and free navigation in Bering Sea, -would i)rotect hej" against 

 the then unmentioned and unclaimed right of visiting destruction upon 

 her seal herds and the industry they supported, ujion the i)reteiise of 

 the right of free fishing accorded to the United States and Great Britain. 



In this formative and progressive growth of international opinion it 

 may well be asserted that the right of pelagic hunting, with its attend- 

 ant right of indiscriminate slaughter of fur-seals, has lost the authority 

 of its ancient origin among savages and is no hmger a concrete rule 

 or principle or even a reputable dognui of international law, in the 

 application that Great Britain makes of it. International law is based 

 on the same recognized elements of right government that are at the 

 foundation of nearly all the municipal laws of the great civili/ed 

 powers. This concordance in the elements and strm-ture of the two sys- 

 tems of law is established by many rules that are common to the munic- 

 ipal laws of such nations. In none of them is there a clearer or more 

 distinctly recognized doctrine than that of rights acquired by prcscri[)- 

 tion. 



In the English common law an abso'ute title is acquired to any prop- 

 erty after it has been in the open possession of the occu])ant and those 

 holding under him for the period of twenty years. This is a rule of re- 

 pose adopted for the peace of society. In those features it is even more 

 useful between nations than it is between individuals. So jxttent is this 

 rule that the courts of both countries have "uniformly declared that any 

 grant, will, deed, or statute, will be conclusively presumed to exist, that 

 is necessary to sui)port the title of the party who has held uninterruxited 

 possession for twenty years. 



