734 



THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



thought they had a case for approaching other Powers, and if 

 so what were the grounds and propositions they should ask 

 those Powers to agree to. With regard to bays, the Foreign 

 Secretary said it had generally been understood that the quali- 

 fication of the three-mile limit applied to bays ten miles wide, 

 and they must be very careful as to how far they pressed the 

 doctrine as to the width of a bay, or laid down an inter- 

 national doctrine on any particular bay. They must think 

 of what the application of it might be in other parts of the 

 world. 1 



In this statesmanlike speech the case was put temperately 

 and fairly. Whether the Moray Firth is or is not a territorial 

 bay, it has been the general practice of the British Government 

 to contend for the ordinary three-mile limit, at least on open 

 coasts, in relation to fishery questions. If there are clear 

 reasons for the extension of this limit at any part of the coast, 

 or in the North Sea generally, in the common interests of the 

 fisheries, as recommended by the Select Committee of the House 

 of Commons in 1893 ; or for the prohibition of trawling within 

 a great area on the Continental coast, as urged by the English 

 trawlers, and recommended by the Parliamentary Committees 

 of 1900 and 1904 ; or if it is believed to be necessary to regulate 

 the fisheries in any way beyond the ordinary limit, then obvi- 

 ously the best method is to endeavour to come to an arrange- 

 ment with the other Powers concerned. There are precedents 

 for this course in British policy. By treaties with France, the 

 British Government agreed to bind British subjects not to fish 

 for oysters or any kind of fish within Granville Bay in waters 

 beyond the ordinary limit. In the interests of the preservation 

 of the fur-seal, in which the United States was mainly con- 

 cerned, they agreed to prohibit British subjects from taking 

 them within a limit of sixty miles around the Pribilov Islands, 

 and to compel them to observe a close -time on the high seas, 

 and to use only the primitive spear. They have also by treaty 

 agreed to respect various other limits beyond the ordinary 

 three miles in the interest of the preservation of other kinds of 

 seals. The case of the North Sea, or of that inlet of it known 

 as the Moray Firth, is on the same footing as these. The 

 question is not one of the extension of territorial sea qua 

 1 Hansard, vol. 191, p. 1769. 



