106 ARGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



those, wherever they may dwell, who want the seals, and the Canadian 

 pelagic sealers, who are threatening the extermination of them. If that 

 danger can be averted by the method which alone can be effective, the 

 recognition of a property interest in the United States, the benefit will 

 accrue equally to all. The seal-skins will be furnished to the citizens 

 of Great Britain and of all other nations upon the same terms upon 

 which they are obtainable by citizens of the United States. The large 

 interests of Great Britain in the manufacture of the skins will be re- 

 lieved from the peril which threatens them. None will be losers, save 

 those who are engaged in the cruel pursuit, forbidden by the law of 

 nature, and by every sentiment of humanity, of destroying this useful 

 race of animals. And the loss even to them would be comparatively 

 small, for the pursuit under present conditions can not continue for 

 more than a very short period. 



The United States may, indeed, derive a profit peculiar to themselves 

 as the cultivators of the herd; but this is the just reward of their in- 

 dustry, abstinence, and care, and no more than every other nation in 

 respect to products peculiar to itself. Without these voluntary efforts 

 the herds would be speedily swept away. Their present existence and 

 numbers are absolutely due to these efforts. It is by such means alone 

 that nature makes her gifts fully available to their desired extent to all 

 nations. The advantages which, in the partition amoug nations, have 

 fallen under the power of the United States, it is their duty, and their 

 duty to mankind, to improve. The rights and interests of mankind are 

 properly asserted in this international forum ; but they can be asserted 

 only through the United States. If the world has the right, as it cer- 

 tainly has, to call upon that nation to make the benefits which nature 

 has assigned to its custody available, it must clothe it with the powers 

 which are requisite to that end. 



If the United States have, as has now been shown, a property interest 

 in the Alaskan herd, the undersigned conceives it to be a certain con- 

 sequence that they have the right to protect it anywhere upon the high 

 seas against injury or invasion, by such reasonable exercise of force as 

 may be necessary. This proposition will be fully discussed in connec- 

 tion with the subject next to be considered, of the rights acquired by 

 the United States in the sealing industries carried on by them upon 

 the Pribilof Islands. 



If the foregoing argument is successful in showing that the United 

 States have a property in the Alaskan seal herd their right to protect 



