218 ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 



erty is marie to the United States in that animal, or what is equivalent 

 to it, the fate of the animal is already sealed. 



In looking- at the meritorions features which the ownersof the Pribylof 

 Islands exhibit, and which constitute their title to this award of jiiop- 

 erty, it may at first sight appear that they do not have the same sort of 

 merit that thecultivator of the land has to the bushel of grain that he pro- 

 duces, or that the manufacturer of an agricultural implement has, which 

 is in every part of it the fruit of his labor; but wheu you look closely 

 into the case you will see that the merit of the owners of those islands 

 is precisely of the same character and goes to the same extent; and 

 that the present existence of that herd is just as much due to a meri- 

 torious, voluntary, exercise of eflbrt on the part of the owners of those 

 islands as any product of mechanical industry is due to the workman 

 wlio fashions it. This species of property it will be remembered is 

 called by Blackstone property |)er industriam and very ])roper]y called 

 so. Now, what industry is exhibited by the owners of these islands to 

 entitle them to say that the seals are their property per industriam? 

 They remove a population of hundreds of people at great expeuse to 

 those islands, feed them, keep them there to protect these animals and 

 their breeding places against all enemies, and maintain at prodigious 

 ex])ense a marine guard along the coast for the same purpose. Unless 

 that were done, marauders would swoop down ui)on those islands and 

 destroy them at once. In the next place they do not kill the seals 

 indiscriminately. They practice abstinence, self-denial. They might 

 kill every animal as it arrives and put its skin on the market at once 

 and get the full benefit of it. That is the temptation always to man, 

 to take the utmost that he can, and to take it at once for present enjoy- 

 ment. But the owners of the Pribylof Islands practice a self denial. 

 They forego present enjoyment. They forbid themselves that enjoyjnent 

 and they do it in tlie hope of obtaining a future and a larger good. 

 They practice art and self-denial and confine their drafts to the super- 

 fluous males. 



I wish to dwell a moment upon the merits of that particular feature of 

 self-denial. I have given in the i)rinted argument a multitude of cita- 

 tions which illustra<!fe the merit of this quality of abstiiience as a founda- 

 tion for property. All political econonjiists, for instance, in treating of 

 the question of interest, and the moral right which a man has to exact 

 interest for the use of money, defend it upon this ground. Capital is 

 lent and interest is taken upon it. What is capital! It is the fruit of 

 saving. A n^^an who has produced something, instead of si)euding it 

 in luxuries, saves it; no man can save for hiniseir alone. lie saves for 

 the whole world as well. He saves sometliing which will su])port pro- 

 ductive industry, and the whole i)roductive industry of the world 

 depends ui)on the savings of the world. If it was not for the practice 

 of this abstinence which leads to the accumulation of wealth which 

 may be employed for the ]>urpose of sustaining productive industry, 

 productive industry would be impossible. 



Mr. Senior, in his Political Economy — he is an author of recognized 

 authority — says (I read on page 93 of our printed Argument from the 

 note) : 



But although human labour and the a.a^ency of nature, independently of that of 

 ni;in, are the primary productive ]iov\ ers, they require the coucurreuce of a tliird pro- 

 ductive principle to give tlieui coiu])let(' eliieiency. 'I'lu' most hihorious impulation 

 iuliabitiug the most fertile territory, if tliey dt^voted all tlieir lal)Our to the iiroductiou 

 of iuuuediate results and consumed its ]iro(hice as it arose, would soon tiiid their 

 utmost exertions insuthcieiit to produce even the mere necessaries of existence. 



