214 ARGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



ask the aid of another in the defense of its rights. Each is ordinarily 

 left to enforce its own laws with its own power. The United States do 

 not ask for the slightest measure of aid in the performance of what is 

 properly their own exclusive work. 



But it may happen, and does happen in the present ease, that what 

 iroin natural situation may be peculiarly the proper work of one 

 nation, mayyetbe the work, in some degree, of others. The destruction 

 of a useful race of animals is the destruction of property belonging to 

 the whole world, and is a crime against the law of nations. To pre- 

 vent and punish it is as distinctly the duty of all civilized nations as it is 

 to prevent and punish the crime of piracy. The pelagic sealer is hostis 

 humani generis, just as the pirate is, though with a less measure of 

 enormity and horror. It is, therefore, part of the duty of nations to 

 forbid their citizens from engaging in the practice of pelagic sealing 

 and, as the parties to this controversy have voluntarily submitted it to 

 this Tribunal to declare what regulations outside of their respective 

 jurisdictions it is their duty to concur in and enforce for the preserva- 

 tion of the seals, it is entirely proper that the tribunal should frame, 

 even while recognizing the property interest asserted by the United 

 States, a simple regulation, to be concurrently adopted and enforced 

 by each nation, prohibiting all sealing at sea, except by the native 

 tribes of Indians on the northwest coast of America for the purposes 

 of food and clothing in the manner in which they were originally ac- 

 customed to prosecute it. 



James G. Carter. 



