JURISDICTIONAL AND OTHER RIGHTS OVER BERING SEA. 39 



sary defense of its property and local interests, the undersigned insist 

 that the former has no material place in this discussion. Eussia never 

 insisted upon it so far as respects the regions to which our attention is 

 directed, or the industry of sealing which is here a subject of discus- 

 sion. The United States never have claimed it and do not now claim 

 it. Themselves a maritime nation, they assert, as they always have 

 asserted, the freedom of the seas. But they suppose it to be quite cer- 

 tain that the doctrine of the freedom of the seas has never been deemed 

 by civilized nations as a license for illegal or immoral conduct, or as in 

 any manner inconsistent with the general and necessary right of self- 

 defense above mentioned, which permits a nation to protect its property 

 and local interests against invasion by wrongdoers wherever upon the 

 sea the malefactors may be found. This right and the grounds and 

 reasons upon which the present case calls for an application of it, are 

 directly embraced by the Fifth Question which is submitted to the Tri- 

 bunal, and are, in the opinion of the undersigned, the proper subjects 

 of principal attention, and they will elsewhere, in the appropriate 

 place, devote to them that deliberate and full consideration which 

 importance their demands. 



We may, however, briefly observe here, that according to the best 

 authorities in international law the occupation of a new country which is 

 sufficient to give to the occupying nation a title to it depends very 

 largely upon the nature of the country and the beneficial uses which it 

 may be made to subserve. In the case of a fruitful region capable of 

 supporting a numerous population, it might not be allowable for a 

 nation first discovering it to maintain a claim over vast areas which it 

 did not actually occupy and attempt to improve; but where a remote 

 aud desolate region has been discovered, yielding only a single or 

 few products, and all capable of being beneficially secured by the dis- 

 covering nation, a claim to these products asserted and actually exer- 

 cised, is all the occupation of which the region is susceptible and is 

 sufficient to confer the right of property; and that whatever au- 

 thority it may be reasonably necessary to exercise upon the adjoin- 

 ing seas in order to protect such interests from invasion may properly 

 be asserted. Says Phillimore, who seems to have understood the Ore- 

 gon territory as embracing the whole northwest coast of North America: 



A similar settlement was founded by the British and Bussian Fur 

 Companies in North America. 



The chief portion of the Oregon Territory is valuable solely for the 

 fur -bearing animals Avhich it produces. Various estabbshments in 



