BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 117 



4^.-l<'lSllllI\(ji IN THE IVAVIGAUliE WATERS OF THE: UNITED 



STATES.* 



TheConiniitteo on the Judiciary, to whom have been referred House bill 4690 and several petitions 

 in favor of the passage of the same, have fully considered the same, and report as follows : 



The i^roposed bill would give by act of Congress to the citizens of 

 the several States of the Union equal right with the citizens of each 

 State to fish for floating fish in the navigable waters and lakes of the 

 latter. The question involved depends on the title to the waters and 

 lakes referred to. 



For purposes of navigation they are free to all the citizens of the sev- 

 eral States alike, and the power of Congress to regulate commerce be- 

 tween the States includes the right to prevent any hostile legislation 

 by any State against the equal rights with its own citizens of the citi- 

 zens of all the other States; or it is forbidden by the clause of the Con- 

 stitution which gives to the citizens of each State the privileges and 

 immunities of citizens of the several States. (C. U. S., Art. 4, § 2.) 



But it is right to inquire whether the citizens of a State acquire their 

 right of fishing in its waters as a privilege derived from the grant of the 

 State, or as vested in them by virtue of ownershij) as members of the 

 body politic. 



It has been settled by the highest authority in the English courts, 

 that ever since Magna Charta, the crown cannot grant to a subject a 

 several fi.shery in an arm of the sea, or in navigable waters, but that all 

 such waters and the beds thereof are vested in the crown for the bene- 

 fit of the subjects thereof, and not to be used in any manner to derogate 

 from the right of navigation which belongs to the subjects of the realm. 

 (Free Fishery, &c., v. Gann, 115 E. C. L. E., 803 House of Lords Cases, 

 per Lord Chancellor Westbury and Lord Wensleydale (Baron Parke) ; 

 S. C. in Exch. Chamber, 106 E. C. L. E., 853; S, C, 103 E. C. L. R., 387 

 Common Pleas.) 



This royal title held for the benefit of the subjects of the crown, 

 which cannot be aliened to their detriment, has been thus recognized 

 ever since Magna Charta. 



Li this country, by a series of decisions, the Supreme Court of the 

 United States has settled the law in accordance with the English courts, 

 that upon the Revolution the rights of the crown in navigable waters 

 and inclusive of arms of the sea devolved upon each State as to all such 

 waters within the territory of each of them. (Martin v. Waddell, IG 

 Peters, 307.) 



In Pollard i\ Hagan (3 Howard, 212) tlie sanii; doctrine was main- 

 tained as to new States, as well as to the original States; and the right 

 of the State fixed to all the beds of rivers below high-water mark. 



' Report presented to the House of Representatives by Hou. J. R. Tucker, May 13, 1886. 



