65 



or lawful privileges of any man arc less sacred tliaii those of a State, 

 but government implies the subordination of private riglits, in a neces- 

 sary degree, to the general welfare, and this is tlie first view of all 

 rights taken by international law. It is on this principle that these 

 two Governments have, in this treaty, substituted their international 

 rights and powers as sovereigns over their people, and all their rights 

 respecting fur seals, and over the seals and the rookeries, islands, 

 waters, and their lessees, and compel them all to yield to a rule of inter- 

 national law, that the sovereign nations alone can deal with the inter- 

 national rights of their people. If they should extend the existing modus 

 Vivendi perpetually, no citizen of either country could be heard to make 

 complaint tliat his private rights had been thus destroyed, or that they 

 were protected by any law that could save them from the power of their 

 own government. 



If all the facts presented in this case establish that seals are property 

 to be classed as domestic or domesticated animals, the claim of the 

 right to hunt and destroy them anywhere against the consent of the 

 owner is without foundation. If cattle on the boundary line of 

 Canada, where they are grazed in vast herds, and are almost as wild 

 as buffalo, should wander across the border of the United States, that 

 Government could not seize them without a violation of international 

 law. The case would be stronger under that law if the cattle were 

 owned by tlie Government of Canada, or Great Britain. The right of 

 property, rationc soli, would not accrue to the United States, for the 

 reason that they are domestic animals in their universal classification, 

 and that fact is notice to the world that they are the property of some- 

 body, and are not res nullius. 



Whether fur seals arc fishes, or domestic animals, or wild animals, is 

 to be determined, first, by the question whether the most essentiiil tacts 

 of their existence occur during the period of their lives, on thehmd. It 

 is possible to nurture them on hind, by using inoper aitpliances and 

 food, and they can thus be made to increase in numbers, but that pos- 

 sibility only proves that they are not fishes. This is demonstrated in 

 Paris and London, and elsewhere, by daily experience. It is not ])os- 

 sible that a seal can be born and reared in the sen. It is, therefore, to 

 be classed as a land animal, as its creation and birth can only occur 

 on land, and these facts are essential to the existence of this animal. 



A singular faculty of the male seals, at least, o^ living for months 

 on land without taking food, showsthattl'.ey may be kept out of the sea 

 11495 M 5 



