ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 219 



To the third principle or instrument of i^rodiiction, without which the two others 

 are inefficient we shall give the name of abstinence, a term by which we express tlie 

 conduct of a person who either abstains from the unproductive use of what he can 

 command, or designedly prefers the production of remote to that of immediate results. 



After defining capital as "an article of wealth, the result of human 

 exertion employed in the production or distribution of wealth", he goes 

 on to say: 



It is evident that capital thus defined is not a simple productive instrument. 



It is in most cases the result of all the three productive instrunients combined. 

 Some natural agent must have afforded the material; some delay of enjoyment must 

 in general have reserved it from unproductive use and some labor must in general 

 have been employed to prej^are and preserve it. By the word abstinence we tviuli to 

 express that agent, distinct frvm labour and the agency of nature, the concurrence of which 

 is necessary to the existence of capital and which stands in the same relation to profit as 

 labour does to wages. 



Wherever you can find among men a disposition to forego immedi- 

 ate enjoyment for the purpose of accomplishing a future good you find a 

 prime element of civilization, and it is that which society encourages, 

 and worthily encourages. I have no time to read fuvtlier from these 

 citations upon the merit of abstinence; but I especially commend them 

 to the attention of the learned Arbitrators. That is what is exhibited 

 upon these Pribylof Islands. The United States, or its lessees, do not 

 disturb these animals as they come. They invite them to come. Thev 

 devote the islands entirely to their service. They cherish them while 

 they are there. They protect them against all enemies. They carefully 

 encourage, so far as they can, all the offices of reproduction, and, at the 

 appropriate time, they select from the superfluous males, that cannot 

 do any good to the herd and may, under certain circumstances, do 

 injury to it, the entire annual increase of the animal and apply it to the 

 purposes of mankind; and, without the exercise of those qualities, as is 

 perfectly plain, that herd would have been swe])t from existence half a 

 century ago, and the Pribylof Islands would have been in the same 

 condition in respect to seals as the Falkland Islands, or the Masafuera 

 Islands, and other localities, once the seats of mighty poijulations of 

 these animals. 



It is upon these considerations that I base the position of the United 

 States, that it has a right of property in those seals. There is no prin- 

 ciple upon which the law of pro])erty rests which does not defend it, 

 and there is no rule of the municipal law itself, so far as that law 

 speaks, which does not support it. They defend it comi)letely and 

 absolutely; and when we step beyond the boundaries of municipal law 

 to the moral law, the law of nature, that law which is the foundation of 

 international law, it also speaks with a concurring voice; and in what- 

 ever direction we prosecute our inquiries we find uniform sui)port for 

 the same doctrine. All the rules and the whole spirit of municipal 

 and international law concur and contribute to this conclusion that 

 the property of the United States in that seal herd is complete and abso- 

 lute, not only while it is upon the islands, but wherever it wanders, and 

 is protected by the safeguards which property carries with it where- 

 ever it has a right to go. 



If there were anything which might be urged against this conclusion, 

 we might be disposed to hesitate. But what is there that can be urged 

 against it. What right is there that can be set up against it? If there 

 were anybody who could set up a right against this conclusion, a dif- 

 ferent case would be made. If any man or set of men, or any nation, 

 could say: " This conclusion of yours, ])lausible enough in itself, defen- 

 sible enough in itself, nevertheless comes into collision with a right of 



