PO TENTIALITIES. 



319 



control over all the semi-submerged Beche-de-mere yielding reefs and pearl-shelling grounds 

 within the territorial limits of the colony, defined on a previous page ; but yet, on the finding of 

 the Colonial Office, such claim cannot, under present conditions, be recognised. Within reasonable 

 limits, absolute jurisdiction over a more extended area than heretofore, of the fishing grounds 

 contiguous to a country's sea-board, might be made a satisfactory basis for amended international 

 agreement. An extension of the present three-mile limit to one of twenty, thirty, or, it might 

 be, as much even as fifty miles from the mainland or island foreshore, might be agreed upon as 

 a settlement of several of the most vexatious existing fisheries-jurisdiction disputes. 



In anticipation of the sitting, or of any future. International Commission's arriving at an ad- 

 verse decision, with respect to the United States' modest claim to a monopoly of the entire area of 

 the Behring Sea, for the prosecution of her sealing industry, it is suggested that a satisfactory 

 and equitable solution might be proffered in the form of awarding her undisturbed control over a 

 broad band of the sealing grounds that flank the entire littoral of her Alaskan and North-west 

 territories. This band of absolute control should, as proposed in the preceding paragraph, 

 extend to a distance of twenty miles or more from the mainland or territorial islands' foreshores. 

 Somewhat analogous extended limits of jurisdiction might also be reciprocally conceded, with 

 relation to the Canadian and other disputed fishing rights on the Atlantic sea-board. As an 

 essential element in the harmonious adjustment of the strained relationships, that have of recent 

 years characterised the intercourse of the various nationalities in the disputed areas, it is advo- 

 cated that the community enjo3'ing the monopoly of jurisdiction should, subject to their payment 

 of the appointed license fees and export or import duties, corresponding with those levied on 

 her own shipping, throw open her fishing grounds, unreservedly, to the flags of all nations. 



The Australian pearl and pearl-shell fisheries, and similar and allied fishing industries the 

 world over, such as those of sponges, beche-de-mer, and coral, in which divers are extensively 

 employed, invite the suggestion of a somewhat different plan of treatment. Diving operations 

 with the aid of apparatus have, in Australian waters, so superseded the earlier system of naked 

 diving, that the sea-bottom, within an inside depth of from twenty-five to thirty fathoms, 

 has become practically fcrra-finna, upon which it is possible to prosecute the garnering and 

 cultivation of pearl-shell, sponges, and other valuable marine products, with the same certainty 

 and facilities as pertain to the terrestrial crops. Under such conditions, these submarine harvest- 

 fields represent as substantial and legitimate an appanage as, say, the elevated arable and pasture 

 lands or the subterranean mineral mines of the adjoining mainland. Throughout the sea-boards 

 of these countries, where shallow, cultivable, waters extend for a more or less considerable 

 distance, what might be termed the divers' outside working limit of a depth of thirty fathoms 

 should be made coincident with the actual territorial boundary. 



An arrangement on the foregoing basis would give to Queensland absolute control of all the 

 water area within the Great Barrier limits, and also in Torres Strait ; though in this latter 



