326 SEAL LIFE ON THE PKIBILOF ISLANDS. 



useful in controlling the rapid inroads man's ingenuity is now making 

 on the denizens of the sea. In short, that it would be a direct, useful, 

 and common-sense way of settling the whole matter. 



THE BRITISH POSITION. 



With equal skill of argument and eloquence of address the advo- 

 cates of Great Britain and Canada held that the tribunal possessed but 

 one function that its duty was to declare the law and not to make it; 

 but that, whatever its function might be as an international body, it was 

 not vested with the power to make international law, but must keep to 

 the straight and narrow way of settling a contention between two 

 nations and adjusting two conflicting methods of catching seals. They 

 asked that the tribunal provide for the continuation of pelagic sealing 

 under the most favorable conditions consistent with carrying out the 

 terms of the treaty. True, nothing was said in the treaty about preserv- 

 ing the business of pelagic sealing, but before so patient and generous 

 a court it was not difficult to confuse the issue of preserving the seals 

 and continuing pelagic sealing and to take up a large share of the pro- 

 ceedings with pleadings in behalf of the latter. They demanded that 

 the question of property right be settled from the standpoint that the 

 seals were wild animals, which man could only reduce to possession by 

 destroying. They insisted that the law relating to wild animals, regard- 

 less of its origin, had been accepted by nations as the years ran on; it 

 was very old law and very good law; but, whether ^ood or bad, it was 

 the law, and from its teachings the tribunal must not allow itself to be 

 enticed away by the seductive citations and insidious arguments of 

 learned counsel on the other side. There must be no making of laws to 

 suit new conditions; the old stand-bys must be adhered to, whether 

 applicable or not. They urged that the seals being wild animals, the 

 United States had done nothing to encourage or develop in them the 

 animum revertendi the inclination to return to their homes, as in the 

 case of bees and similar creatures and thus had lost their claim to a 

 property in them, and if the world or a part of it desired to turn out 

 in boats and to destroy the industry by shooting the seals in the water 

 they had a perfect right to do so, for a wild animal was free to all. No 

 matter if seal mothers roaming the sea for food did fall before the gun 

 or spear of the pelagic hunter and their helpless pups starve on the 

 rookeries, the hand of destruction must not be stayed, for the Tnited 

 States had no rights anyone was bound legally to respect when the 

 seals were 3 miles off shore, and humanitarian considerations had no 

 place in the controversy. They insisted that the tribunal had no author- 

 ity in law to declare a property right in the seals or in the industry, but 

 if the tribunal contemplated disregarding the law and settling this 

 question on lines of their own choosing they must refrain from doing 

 so, because it would interfere with that wonderful invention, the imme- 

 morial right on the high seas, an interference nations not only would 

 not brook, but which they would actively resent. 



THE TRIBUNAL'S DECISION. 



The tribunal, true to the conservatism of the Old World, accepted 

 this interpretation of their powers, recognized the potency of venerable 

 legal relics, assented to the arguments of the counsel for (ireat Britain 

 and Canada based thereon, and contented itself with deciding that the 

 United States had no right of protection or property in the fur seals. 



