INTERNATIONAL REGULATIONS OF FISHERIES ON THE HIGH SEAS. 109g 
and Jade Bay in Germany. Norway claims as territorial waters many of her 
great fiords or gulfs, which are very wide at the mouth and extend far inland; 
and she especially reserves to her fishermen the very important cod fishery 
prosecuted by 30,000 men each spring in West Fiord and about the Lofoten 
Islands, this exclusive right being founded in immemorial usage. 
The situation was well expressed by Lord Blackburn in 1877 in the case 
involving jurisdiction in Conception Bay: “It does not appear that jurists and 
text writers are agreed what are the rules as to dimensions and configurations 
which, apart from other considerations, would lead to the conclusion that a bay 
is or is not a part of the territory of the state possessing the adjoining coasts; and 
it has never been made the ground of any judicial determination.” The ques- 
tion has to be considered in each case with regard to international laws and 
usages affecting that particular body of water; but nations are inclined to view 
with jealousy this extension of territoriality, and the burden of establishing 
the usage is upon the nation claiming under it. 
While the Supreme Court of the United States has held* that the waters of 
the Great Lakes are ‘‘high seas” within the meaning of a certain section of the 
criminal laws,’ yet those waters are not high seas as the term is used in inter- 
national law and in this paper. The Great Lakes are wholly territorial, and the 
waters on either side of the international boundary line are under the exclusive 
jurisdiction of the respective countries. 
RESTRICTION OF FISHERIES ON THE HIGH SEAS. 
Although it is customary to speak of the “freedom of the seas,’’ we must 
not understand that this signifies lawlessness. The freedom of the seas simply 
implies perfect freedom of navigation and fishery for vessels of all nations with- 
out restriction from any foreign government. As regards the vessels flying its 
flag, each sovereign state has as much authority on the high seas as within its 
territorial waters, and may enforce among them any regulations or restrictions 
it may deem advisable. Consequently the municipal law of a power is sufficient 
for regulating those fisheries on the high seas prosecuted only by subjects of that 
nation. Prominent instances of the exercise of this authority are found in the 
old herring regulations of England and of Scotland, in the Newfoundland seal- 
fishery laws of 1879 and 1892, the American mackerel law of 1887, the Aus- 
tralian pearl-shell regulations of 1888 and 1889,° and in regulations estab- 
lished by many of the continental countries. Although these municipal laws 
are operative on the high seas, they are not international regulations, which 
signifies something more than the independent legislation of an individual state, 
affecting its subjects only. 
@ United States v. Rogers (1893), United States Reports, vol. 150, p. 249. 
b Section 5346 of the Revised Statutes, giving the federal courts jurisdiction over certain crimes 
committed upon American vessels ‘‘on the high seas and out of the jurisdiction of any particular state.” 
¢ The municipal regulations for the pearl fisheries of the colony of Western Australia extend over an 
area of the high seas estimated at 700,000 square miles. 
