ORAL ARGUMENT OF JAMES C. CARTER, ESQ. 237 



Now the other ground ou which Great Britain seeks to maintain this 

 practice is that the seas avefree. They say : " You cannot interfere on 

 the high seas with us and our industry, which is a rightful one. That 

 does not follow. Whether a thing is right or not depends upon its 

 moral qualities and, not upon the ability to punish it. A great many 

 wrong things may be done on the sea, because there is no municipal 

 law to xu'eveut them, but that does not give any semblance of right to 

 such proceedings. The distinction between right and wrong is not 

 abolished on the sea; it goes all over the world, and there is no part of 

 the sea which is not subject to the dominion of law. Therefore, to say 

 that " the seas are free for this practice because you cannot punish us 

 for it", is to make an assertion that has no foundation whatever in 

 moral or legal reason. Of course in saying that the practice of pelagic 

 sealing is wrong, we do not insist that the United States have, for that 

 reason alone, a right to repress it. The United States do not assume 

 the office of redressing wrongs all over the world; but what they do 

 say is that where their right of ijroperty in an industry is injured by 

 an act on the high seas which is, in itself, a wrong, then they have a 

 right to interfere and defend themselves against that wrong. Now 

 there are two foundations upon which the right to this industry carried 

 on at the Pribilof Islands is maintained by the United States, and they 

 have quite a close resemblance to each other and yet are in certain par- 

 ticulars distinct. The tirst is that that industry is made possible in 

 consequence of a particular natural advantage whicli attaches to the 

 soil of the United States at this spot, and that that advantage consists 

 in the fact that the race of seals regularly resort thither and spend a 

 considerable portion of their life there, enabling man to carry on a 

 husbandry in them. This right is therefore founded on a natural 

 advantage peculiar to the spot, and is as much a right of the nation as 

 any other. The other contention is that it is a national industry which 

 cannot be broken up by the wrongful attacks of individuals of other 

 nations. I call it a national industry for this reason; it is an industry 

 which requires the establishment of rules and regulations for its con- 

 duct, which rules and regulations cannot be carried into effect except 

 by the authority of a nation. 



Senator Morgan. Do you apply that doctrine to all the fur fisheries 

 in the world? 



Mr. Carter. Well, I am not making that point" now, l)ut only as to 

 the Pribilof Islands. In similar conditions 1 think it would apply. 



Senator Morgan. You mean that the seals cannot be j^reserved 

 without national authority. 



Mr. Carter. That is tlie very point; I call it a national industry 

 because it requires national protection. 



The President. You would make a difference between domesticated 

 seals and wild seals, as between wild bees and domesticated bees ? You 

 would say that the Pribilof Island seals are domesticated seals? 



Mr. Carter. Well, I have considered the question of property in the 

 seals themselves and have done with it. I am now upon the question 

 of the right of the United States to carry on this industry even if they 

 had no property in the seals; and I have stated a means by which this 

 industry can be carried on there and which makes it a rightful indus- 

 try. Now, where a nation has created an industry by the aid of rules 

 and regulations which it has established; where it has brought in a 

 population to engage in that industry, so that the destruction of that 

 industry would deprive them of their means of subsistence, I maintain 

 that the citizens of another nation cannot, for their own temporary 



