286 ORAL ARGUMENT OF FREDERICK R. COUDERT, ESQ. 



intelligence, of preservation, or the permission of a practice conceded to 

 be brntal in the extreme, demoralizing to all those who are engaged in 

 it and a crime against natnre. 



Perhaps even this would not be sufticient if we stopped there. This 

 High Tribunal will say: "What are your rights'?" Well, in arguing 

 before this High Tribunal the word "right" is most extensive. If there 

 were any other Tribunal, any Tribunal of lesser dignity that could have 

 determined this question, we would not have called upon you. The 

 mere act of resorting to such a Court as this, enlarges the domain of 

 right and ])rove8 that we are malving a stej) forward in the way of civil- 

 ization and humanity. You are here to declare what 7-ight is in these 

 cases unfettered by statutes, uncontrolled by limited jurisdiction, view- 

 ing the subject from a high and lofty eminence to the end that Justice 

 may be done between the contending nations, for the benefit of the 

 world. If this be so, arguments drawn from statutes nuiy be of little 

 avail. You will enquire what principles underlie all these questions, 

 what rules it is well for you to establish, not only for the Government 

 of Great Britain aiul the United States in this i)articular instance, but 

 rules that will operate hereafter to settle in advance the controversies 

 between nations, and to allow civilization to pursue its beneficent 

 course, without threats, or disturbance, or violence. 



As to our industry upon the islands: I have said of what it consisted. 

 It will ajipear from the case — and this is an answer to a question of one 

 of the arbitrators made a few days ago — that one of the moving induce- 

 ments of the United States to pay a large sura of money to Eussiaw^as 

 the fact that there was on the territory ceded a valuable industry, well 

 settled, well recognized and undisturbed. If prescription means any- 

 thing, I may say that it is founded upon, and sui)ported by prescription. 



Until within a few years the practice of entering upon Bering Sea 

 and slaughtering the mother seals and the pups upon our islands was 

 unknown. Our title had never, that I know of, or so far as I have been 

 able to read, been disputed. It was the Pribilof industry on one side 

 the water; the Commander industry on the other, both beneficently and 

 ]ieacefully pursued. Suddenly there comes a new element in the case. 



The world is moving on. It cannot sto}). It must move for good or 

 for evil, and new elements come in upon the sea just as they do in our 

 own quiet civilised civic life. 



Something was said, and questions were asked, about the rights of 

 the Indians who lived u])on this industry, and whether we conceded 

 that they had a property in the seals. If that question were asked me 

 I should unhesitatingly deny that they had any right in or to the seals. 

 That their ettorts to niake a livelihood by spearing an occasional seal 

 for food were tolerated, I do not deny; that they would be tolerated to 

 this day as an insignilicant incursion into our territory, is probable; but 

 look at the ditterence; it is one that should not be lost sight of. The 

 Indian paddling about a few miles from land in his canoe to catch an 

 occasional seal, what harm did he do to the herd itself? But where the 

 sealer starts out with six men in his boat, with the new w^eapons that 

 have come into use within twenty years, the destruction is i mmeasurable ! 

 If it be true that they may go on improving — if that be the word — in 

 these methods of violence and destruction, why should they stop at the 

 rifle, or the shot-gun, and not employ dynamite"? If one be admissible, 

 why not the other? We put the question to our friends: suppose these 

 intelligent and active sealers should find that, having exhausted the 

 supply of seals which Providence had furnished, it Avas better to indulge 

 in hshing with dynamite, is this a proper and legitimate method ot 



