FIFTEENTH DAY, MAY 2^'^ 1893. 



[The Tribunal conveued pursuant to adjourument, all tlie Arbitrators 

 being present.] 



The President. Mr. Carter, we are ready to bear you. 



Mr. Carter. Mr. President, at the last sitting of the Tribunal at 

 whicli argument was beard, a question was addressed to me by the 

 learned President in the course of my argument which I did not at 

 the moment precisely understand, or I shouhl have answered it at tliat 

 time. I thought it had more particular reference to tlie construction 

 to be placed upon Article VII of the Treat}^, and tberefore said that I 

 would postpone my answer to it until I came to treat of that article. I 

 had been insisting that the grounds and reasons of my argument in 

 support of the proposition tliat tlie United States had a property 

 interest, were not drawn from considerations selfish and peculiar to the 

 United States, but were such as interested the whole world; that the 

 property was one in which the whole world had a beneficial interest. 

 The question which the President addressed to me was whether that 

 X)roperty interest was of the kind mentioned in the fifth question to be 

 submitted under the treaty, or whether it was a qualified property 

 interest of a different kind. I should be misunderstood if it were sup- 

 posed that the asserted property interest of the United States in the 

 seals was anything less than a full and complete property interest. 

 The grounds upon which we support that interest do, indeed, include 

 among other things, the common interest of mankind in the seals, 

 which can be worked out and made available to the different nations 

 only through the instrumentality of awarding a property interest to 

 the United States; but that property interest, when awarded, is iu no 

 respect different from a property interest held under other circum- 

 stances. It is a full and absolute property, entitled to all the protec- 

 tions of property, and which confers upon the owner all the rights 

 which property under any circumstance confers. It is therefore the 

 sort of property interest mentioned iu the fifth question which is sub- 

 mitted under the treaty. 



I now resume my argument upon the question whether, assuming that 

 the United States has a iiroperty in the seals, or a property interest in 

 the industry whicii it maintains upon the Pribilof Islands, it has the 

 right to protect that property, or that i)roi)erty interest, when neces- 

 sary, by the emjdoyment of reasonable force on the high seas. I had 

 supported the affirmative side of that question by showing that it was 

 the necessary consequence of the award of such a right; that there 

 was no other way in which a nation could protect its rights when 

 invaded upon the high seas except by the employment of force. I had 

 undertaken to show that that was the universal method which nations 

 pursued, and had illustrated my view by referring to many instances, 

 most of them drawn from the class of belligerent rights, where force was 

 thus employed by a nation upon the high seas to prevent any invasion 

 of its rights. 

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