PROTECTION AND PROPERTY RIGHTS. 35 



11 The same line of argument would take under ah acts not jus- 

 tifiable because 

 its protection piracy and the slave trade, when committed onhigu 



B6£bS« 



prosecuted in the open sea, or would justify one 

 nation in destroying the commerce of another by 

 placing dangerous obstructions and derelicts in 

 the open sea near its coasts. There are many 

 things that can not be allowed to be done on the 

 open sea with impunity, and against which every 

 sea is mare claiisum. And the right of self-clef ense 

 as to person and property prevails there as fully 

 as elsewhere. If the fish upon Canadian coasts 

 could be destroyed by scattering poison in tho 

 open sea adjacent, with some small profit to those 

 engaged in it, would Canada, upon the just prin- 

 ciples of international law, be held defenseless 

 in such a case? Yet that process would be no 

 more destructive, inhuman, and wanton than this. 



"If precedents are wanting for a defense so Growth of inter- 

 national law. 



necessary and so proper, it is because precedents 

 for such a course of conduct are likewise un- 

 known. The best international law has arisen 

 from precedents that have been established when 

 the just occasion for them arose, undeterred by 

 the discussion of abstract and inadequate rules." 



The views thus expressed by Mr. Phelps were The united 



■t t -»«■ tvi • •!• i States adopt Mr. 



declared by Mr. Blame, in Ins note, to be the Phelps's views. 



views adopted by the Government of the United 



States. 



