226 ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 



There is another thing that is suggested and that is if a property 

 right should be allowed in these animals to the United States it might 

 interfere with, and prevent, the enjoyment by the Indians along the 

 coast of an immemorial right and privilege of theirs to hunt seals for 

 their own purposes. That right of the Indians, such as it is, deserves 

 very respectful consideration. It stands upon something in the nature 

 of moral grounds, I admit. They have something of a better claim than 

 these pelagic sealers. There is some reason for saying that you should 

 not deprive, these Indians who have lived along that coast always and 

 who have from time immemorial supported themselves to a greater or 

 less extent by goijig out in their canoes in the sea and spearing these 

 seals, of that mode of sustaining existence. It might subject them to 

 starvation. You must support them at least if you do deprive them of 

 it. The force of these considerations I have no disposition to disguise. 

 But what is the nature of that case. That is a pursuit of the animals, 

 not for the purpose of commerce, but by barbarians — for they are 

 such — for their own existence. It is a pursuit which of itself makes 

 an insignificant attack upon the herd. It is a pursuit which is prop- 

 erly classified among the natural sources of danger to the herd just as 

 nuich as the killer whale; and I have at an early ])oint in my argument 

 so considered it. It is insignificant in amount. It does not affect the 

 size of the herd; it does not affect any of the conditions which 1 have 

 considered as necessary for the preservation of the existence of the 

 herd. It is, therefore, a pursuit which might be tolerated without 

 danger to the herd. 



Therefore, it is quite possible that the United States should have a 

 property interest in the seals, subject, however, to the right of the 

 Indians to pursue them in the manner in which they were accustomed 

 to do in former times; that is to say, for their own i)urposes, and in 

 canoes from the shore. That is a barbaric pursuit. That is an instance 

 with which the Government of the United States is quite familiar, of the 

 survival of barbaric conditions down into civilized life. It is a condi- 

 tion with which the Government of Great Britain is also perfectly 

 familiar, for it has to deal with it in many quarters of the globe. So 

 long as the Indians exist, and until they are provided with other means 

 of support they should be allowed to continue their natural pursuits so 

 far as possible- and it cannot be supposed that the United States would 

 ever undertake to interfere with these Indians so as to deprive them of 

 their rights. 



But there is one limitation to that. This is a survival of barbaric 

 conditions. It is a barbaric pursuit, and being a barbaric pursuit, does 

 not endanger the existence of the herd, because it is not carried to suflti- 

 cient extent. There is not a large population dependent upon it; but 

 it will not do, under cover of that pursuit, to allow civilization to invade 

 in that manner the herds of fur-seal. It will not do to employ these 

 Indians and man large vessels with them upon the high seas there to 

 attack these seals for the purpose of furnishing them to commerce. 

 That is not a dealing of barbaric nations with seals. 



That is a dealing of civilized nations with the seals. Barbaric nations 

 have rights which civilized nations have not, in certain particulars. As 

 I have said many times in the course of my argument, the attack by 

 barbarians upon the fruits of the earth is limited, confined, and gener- 

 ally not destructive because it is small; but when civilization makes its 

 attack upon them, its methods are perfectly destructive, unless those 

 appliances are made use of which civilization supplies, and by which 

 that destruction may be avoided. This is the precise function which 



