THE INADEQUACY OF THE THREE-MILE LIMIT 727 



regulation of fisheries beyond the limit of exclusive fishing, as 

 defined in the Conventions, will be accepted as applied to the 

 signatories of the Conventions. It is not expressly stated in 

 the Conventions that the waters outside the exclusive fishery 

 limits shall be free and common to all ; but that is implied even 

 in the title of the last of them, 1 and the Convention, in point of 

 fact, lays down such regulations for the conduct of the fishery, 

 outside the exclusive fishery limits, as appeared to the sig- 

 natories at the time sufficient for the equitable enjoyment of 

 the common right. It would be easy to conceive of general 

 regulations being applied independently at particular places by 

 one state, which would have the effect of abridging the common 

 right of the other states, without affecting the interests of its 

 own subjects on the principle of the invitations which the 

 fox and the stork issued to one another in the fable. That the 

 intention was to leave the fisheries outside the limits mentioned 

 free, except in so far as the regulations agreed upon affected 

 them, is clear from the proceedings at the conference at The 

 Hague. As regards other states, however, such as Norway, 

 which were not signatories of the Conventions, it is equally 

 clear that, up to the utmost bounds of the territorial waters, 

 regulations may not only be imposed on their subjects, but they 

 may be excluded from the fisheries altogether. 



The effect of the decision of the High Court of Justiciary 

 was apparently to keep the foreign trawlers out of the Moray 

 Firth for a short time. But very soon a number of them came 

 back again from Grimsby, with express instructions from the 

 owners to fish in the Moray Firth. On 31st January 1907 six 

 masters, all foreigners, of trawlers registered in Norway, were 

 charged at Elgin Sheriff Court with thirteen separate contra- 

 ventions of the byelaw, committed between 23rd November and 

 22nd December 1906, at various distances from about five to 

 twelve miles from the coast ; on conviction, penalties of 100 or 

 sixty days' imprisonment were imposed, and five of the men 

 went to prison. On 4th February other two masters of foreign 

 trawlers were convicted of a corresponding offence at Wick 

 Sheriff Court. At the trial at Elgin, the Norwegian Vice-Consul 



1 " For the purpose of regulating the police of the fisheries in the North Sea 

 outside territorial waters." The use of the words "territorial waters" and 

 " exclusive fishery limits " indifferently for the same thing is common, but 

 improper. 



