RIGHT TO PROTECT INTERESTS AND INDUSTRY. 135 



exclusive jurisdiction. While the seals are upon United States terri- 

 tory during the season of reproduction and nurture, that Government 

 might easily destroy the herd by killing them all, at a considerable 

 immediate profit. From such a slaughter it is not bound to refrain, it' 

 the only object is to preserve the animals long enough to enable them 

 to be exterminated by foreigners at sea. If that is to be the resnlt, it 

 would be for the interest of the Government and plainly within its 

 right and powers, to avail itself at once of such present value as its 

 property possesses, if the future product of it can not be preserved. 

 Can there be more conclusive proof than this of such lawful posses- 

 sion and control as constitutes property, and alone produces and con- 

 tinues the existence of the subject of it? 



The justice and propriety of these propositions, their necessity to the 

 general interests of mankind, and the foundation upon which they rest 

 in the original principles from which rights of ownership are derived, 

 have been clearly and forcibly pointed out by Mr. Carter. 



In a later part of this argument (pp. 1GI-1G9) many instances, past and 

 present, in respect to many descriptions of marine and submarine prop- 

 erty, from many nations, and from Great Britain and its colonies espe- 

 cially, are gathered together to show what the usage of mankind on this 

 subject has been and is. It is that general usage which constitutes the 

 law of this case. And on this point, if it can be shown that any different 

 usage has ever prevailed in the case of any nation able to assert its inde- 

 pendence, touching any similar property on which it set value, let such 

 evidence be produced by those who are able to find it, and whose 

 claims it will subserve. If in this instance the United States Govern- 

 ment has no right of property which it is entitled to protect, the case 

 would present the singular anomaly of being the only one in which 

 that right has not been maintained, in respect to any valuable marine 

 product similarly situated, or appurtenant in like manner to the terri- 

 tory of a maritime country. 



It is against this view of the case, too obvious to escape the attention 

 of the distinguished counsel for Her Majesty's Government, that they 

 have chiefly struggled throughout the British Counter Case, for which 

 they have thought it right to reserve their contentions, both in propo- 

 sitions and evidence, in respect to the principal questions involved. 

 But they have struggled in vain. The broad facts upon which it rests 

 are either admitted or are incontestable. No mere attempt to dispar- 

 age or diminish them, no cavil over details, no conjectural suggestions 



