PROPERTY IN THE ALASKAN SEAL HERD. 103 



tive warfare by a constantly increasing fleet of Canadian sealers made 

 it impossible. 



The experience at the Commander Islands has been the same. The 

 exercise of art, industry, and self-denial produced by the operation of 

 the same motive has been followed by the reward of still abundant 

 herds. 



Nor is there any obstacle in the way of a recognition of a property in- 

 terest growing out of any difficulty in identifying the Alaskan herd 

 upon the high seas. Suggestions of a possible commingling with the 

 herds belonging to the Russian islands on the western side of the Pa- 

 cific and Bering Sea are contained in the Report of the British Com- 

 missioners; but these are coupled with the admission that this com- 

 mingling, if it exist at all, is confined to a few individuals. They are 

 supported by no evidence. The Russian herds are separated by a broad 

 tract, hundreds of miles in width, and it seems entirely certain that all 

 seals found on the eastern side of the Pacific and Bering Sea are 

 members of the Alaskan herds. 



It may be urged, as an objection to the recognition of a property in- 

 terest in the United States, that it would be inconsistent with the con- 

 tinued pursuit of seals by the Indians on the Northwest coast for the 

 purposes of food and clothing. This consideration deserves respectful 

 attention. It is the only form of capturing seals upon the high seas 

 which can assert for itself a moral foundation under the law of nature. 

 Attention has more than once been called in this argument to the dif- 

 ferent degrees of the extension of the institution of property in barbaric 

 and in civilized life. The necessities of society, everywhere and at all 

 times the measure of the extension of the institution, do not in barbaric 

 life require a recognition of property in but comparatively few things. 

 With a scanty and sparse population, little is required by way of cul- 

 tivating the earth or its animals; and both can be, and generally are, 

 allowed to remain in a wild condition, open to indiscriminate use. A 

 full supply of the wants of such society in respect to most animals can 

 be had by indiscriminate killing, without in the least degree endan- 

 gering the stock. That peril is one which civilization brings along 

 with it; and, as we have seen, the safeguard comes also in the shape 

 of the extension of the institution of property. Nothing better illus- 

 trates this than the case of the fnr-seals. Before the occupation of its 

 haunts by civilized nations, the only draft made by man upon the pro- 

 digious herds was limited to a number sufficient to supply the wants 



