Prince. — Territorial Waters 179 



rights in the Moray Firth, beyond the distance of three miles 

 from shore. 



THREE PREVALENT ERRORS REGARDING THREE-MILE LIMIT. 



Prevailing ideas upon the question of territorial waters seem 

 to me to urgently require revision, hence I venture to bring the 

 subject before the American Fisheries Society for consideration. 

 The members of this Society are interested in everything pertaining 

 to the conservation of the fisheries, and if it can be shown that the 

 so-called three-mile limit is insufficient and unsatisfactory from a 

 fisheries' point of view, I venture to hope the Society may place 

 itself on record as favoring a satisfactory readjustment of the 

 matter, and that the leading maritime nations may adopt a limit 

 better fitted to conserve the just rights and interests of all 

 concerned. 



Space will not permit reference to the "headlands question" 

 and other points, and I shall keep the fisheries mainly in view. 



There are three common errors in the minds of many so-called 

 experts regarding the three-mile limit. 



(1) It is regarded as very ancient and venerable, and as 

 established by antiquity and usage and by the general consent of 

 nations. (2) It is regarded as universally applied and adopted. 

 (3) It is asserted to be a canon of international law. 



None of these assertions are true. 



Let me take the last first. If it be claimed that international 

 law has laid down the principle that no territorial sovereignity 

 exists, or can be claimed, beyond the three mile zone, we must 

 ask, I repeat, "What is international law?" It is true that 

 there are Conventions and Treaties and understandings between 

 nations. These are the only definite materials which can be 

 regarded as having any force or binding power. Apart from these, 

 international law is a compound of vague affirmations and claims 

 with little possibility of enforcement, and liable at any moment to 

 be violated or to be ignored with impunity. A great modern 

 authority said that international law is "jus inter gentes" — con- 

 sisting of natural and conventional elements, and so far as it is 

 a law of nature, it is of uncertain obligation, while even the positive 

 elements in the shape of treaties, agreements, precedents, etc., 



