ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES 0. CARTER, ESQ. 169 



Take the case of Peruvian bark. This product is commonly regarded 

 as absohitely necessary in the economy of society; it is a necessity for 

 the cure of certain diseases; it is a si)ecific for them; they \^i\l rage 

 unrestrained unless you have Peruvian bark. Now, suppose the coun- 

 tries where it is grown should say that for some reason or other they 

 will not carry on commerce; and not only that, but that they propose 

 to devastate the plantations where the bark is cultivated: is mankind 

 going to permit that? I will refer to another and recent example which 

 we read about every day in the newsiiapers. Why is Great Britain in 

 Egypt maintaining a control over the destiny of that nation? What 

 reason has she for asserting a dominion over these poor Egyptians'? Is 

 it because they are weak and defenceless? Is that the only reason? 

 No ; I suppose that those who have the destinies of Great Britain in their 

 charge can make out a better case than that. Egypt is the pathway of 

 a mighty commerce; it is necessary that that commerce should be free 

 and unrestrained — that great avenue and highway of traffic must be 

 made to yield the utmost benefit of which it is capable. If the Govern- 

 ment of Egypt is not capable of making it yield its utmost — if that 

 Government is incapable of doing so, other nations have a right to 

 interfere and see that the trust is performed. 



The President. I am afraid that you take a very high point of view, 

 Mr. Carter, because you seem to anticipate the judgments of history. 

 I cannot say more at present. 



Mr. Carter. Not a higher view than is sustained by the practice of 

 mankind for three hundred years. It may be a high point of view, as 

 you say, Mr. President; but it is a view which is defensible both as to 

 theory and practice. Will any one maintain that where a broad tract 

 of the earth's surface happening to be in the possession of an inhospit- 

 able nation, abounds in a blessing sufficient to afford comfort and conven- 

 ience to a very large part of mankind — will any one maintain that that 

 nation may, if she choose, wholly withhold from other countries the 

 benefits she is capable of conferring? If that is true, then all that the 

 writers upon the law of nature tell us to the effect that the gifts of 

 Providence were bestowed upon mankind in general — all that is errone- 

 ous! Are these statements erroneous? I must appeal to some of 

 them. I may refer to Vattel. He says: 



Sec. 203. Hitherto we have considered the nation merely with respect to itself, 

 without any regard to the country winch it possesses. Let us now see it established 

 in a country which becomes its own property and habitation. The earth belongs to 

 mankind in general; destined by the Creator to be their common habitation, and to 

 supply them with food, they all possess a natural right to inhabit it, and to derive 

 Irom it whatever is necessary for their subsistence, and suitable to their wants. (7th 

 Amer. ed. 1849, ch. XVIII.) 



I also quote from Bowyer, a distinguished English writer, and from 

 page 127 of his "Commentaries on the Constitutional Law of England": 



The institution of property, that is to say, the appropriation to particular persons 

 and uses of things which were given by God to all mankind is of natural law. 



And the great philosopher Locke says in his Treatise on Civil 

 Government: 



God who hath given the world to men in common hath also given them reason to 

 make use of it to the best advantage of life aud convenience. The earth and all that 

 is therein is given to men for the support and comfort of their being; aud though 

 all the fruits it naturally produces, aud beasts it feeds, belong to mankind in com- 

 mon, as they are produced by the spontaneous hand of nature; aud nobody has 

 originally a private dominion exclusive of the rest of mankind in any of them, as 

 they are thus in their natural state, yet being given for the use of men, there must 

 of necessity be a means to appropriate them some way or other before they can be 

 of any use, or at all beneficial to any particular man. 



