ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 281 



cerned the danger would cease, but each year it increased us the vessels 

 multiplied and the skill and knowledge of the sealers became greater 

 and was ultimately extended to the Asiatic herd which frequents the 

 Bnssian or Commander Islands. The continued seizing of schooners 

 by the United States met with remonstrances on the part of Canada 

 and England, and finally, after much irritation and heat, became the 

 subject of diplomatic negotiations, the peaceful outcome of which was 

 the Paris Tribunal of Arbitration. 



Three duties were intrusted to the Tribunal of Arbitration : It was to 

 settle certain jurisdiction al questions, to decide the question of property 

 rights, and in the event of the matter being left iu such shape that the 

 concurrence of Great Britain was necessary to establish regulations for 

 the purpose of protecting and preserving the fur seal, it was to frame 

 such regulations as would be applicable outside of the jurisdiction of 

 the respective Governments and to indicate the nonterritorial waters 

 over which these regulations should extend. As it is not important in 

 this connection to consider the jurisdiction al phases of the case there 

 will betaken up at once the property question and the regulations the 

 two points that immediately concern us; the former from the stand- 

 point of general interest, and the latter by reason of their intimate 

 relation to the future of the seals. 



THE AMERICAN POSITION. 



The able representatives of the United States took the position that 

 the tribunal was bound by no precedents, and possessed, by virtue of its 

 very origin, a creative as well as a judicial function. They urged upon 

 the tribunal the taking of high ground and the settlement of the ques- 

 tion upon broad and comprehensive principles. They pointed out that 

 man, by means of invention, was rapidly extending his dominion over 

 the water, as he had over the land, and, by employing methods which 

 were not even dreamed of when many existing municipal and inter- 

 national laws were enacted, threatened the very existence of many 

 creatures useful to man. Turning from the citations of voluminous 

 authorities vindicating the justness of their claim of property right in 

 the seals and in the industry, they pleaded with sturdy argument and 

 great eloquence that the tribunal would fail of its high duty did it not 

 lend its aid to such an extension of the world's idea of property right as 

 was needed to meet the demands of the advancing age. They asked 

 that the narrow ground be not taken that this great tribunal was called 

 into existence solely for the purpose of settling a dispute between two 

 nations, but that it was given an opportunity and was vested with the 

 power to make a substantial contribution to international law, and that 

 its verdict, while disposing of the immediate matter in dispute, should 

 be such a formulation, upon broader lines, of our conception of rights of 

 property and of protection as would be of value to all mankind, irre- 

 spective of nations. They pointed out that the material progress of 

 the world was based upon the fundamental principle of ownership, and 

 that the most effective way of preventing the commercial annihilation 

 of certain great groups of creatures was by lodging in the nation best 

 qualified by its geographic position to protect them a custodianship, to 

 be exercised over them for the benefit of all. It was shown that the 

 adoption of this principle would dispose of the question of the relation 

 of other governments to the subject; would make possible the rehabili 

 tation of many of the seal rookeries of the south ; that it would protect 

 such industries as the coral and pearl fisheries, and that it would be 



