652 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



poses they do not abrogate their right to the farther extent 

 of sea that may be necessary for other purposes. 



Though Germany has not defined the extent of her terri- 

 torial waters by municipal law, 1 she has entered into agree- 

 ments with various Powers respecting the limits of exclusive 

 fishery. The first of these was made with Great Britain in 

 1868, and the rules for the guidance of British fishermen, 

 issued by the Board of Trade in accordance with it, stated 

 that, "The exclusive fishery limits of North Germany are 

 designated by the North German Government as follows : 

 that tract of the sea which extends to a distance of three 

 sea-miles from the extremest limit which the ebb leaves dry 

 of the German North Sea coast, of the German Islands or 

 Flats lying before it, as well as those bays and incurvations 

 of the coast which are ten sea-miles or less in breadth, 

 reckoned from the extremest points of the land and the 

 flats, must be considered as under the territorial sovereignty 

 of the North German Confederation ; " and it is further said 

 that the exclusive rights of fishery in the above spaces are 

 reserved to Germans, and English fishermen are not at liberty 

 to enter these limits except under certain specified circum- 

 stances, as of wind and weather. 2 These limits were again 

 formally recognised by Great Britain in July 1880, and, 

 according to Perels, were further confirmed by the North 

 Sea Convention of 1882. It is obvious that "the extremest 

 limit which the ebb leaves dry," both for the open coast and 

 for bays, will differ considerably on such a coast as that 

 of Germany from the low-water mark of ordinary tides, and 

 that the space included in the measurement will be corres- 

 pondingly enlarged. Germany also agreed with Denmark, 

 in 1880, to the three-mile limit for the adjacent coasts of 

 the two countries in the Baltic, with a ten-mile base-line 

 for bays, the mid-line or thalweg applying where the waters 

 between the respective coasts were less than six miles in 

 width. More recently, an agreement has been concluded 



1 "Das positive deutsche Recht enthiilt keinerlei ausdriickliche Bestimmung 

 iiber die Grenze der Kustengewiisser landwiirts. . . . Auch fur die Grenze see- 

 warts hat das deutsche Recht keine ausdriickliche Bestimmung, und adoptiert in 

 dieser Richtung lediglich die Regeln des Volkerrechts." Harburger, Fifteenth Ann. 

 Rep. Internat. Law Assoc., 73. 1893. 



2 Herstlet, Commercial Treaties, xiv. 1055. Perels, Das Internationale dffentlichs 

 Seerecht der Gegenwart, 38. 



