40 CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



Indians dwelling on either side of the said boundary line, freely to 

 pass and repass by land or inland navigation into the respective ter- 

 ritories and countries of the two parties on the continent of America 

 (the country within the limits of the Hudson's Bay Company only 

 excepted), and to navigate all the lakes, rivers, and waters thereof, 

 and freely to carry on trade and commerce with each other. 



In such a case, no one would suggest that British subjects were to 

 be free from United States law when trading upon United States 

 territory. No one would pretend that the only United States laws 

 that could apply to them were those that were in force at the date 

 of the treaty. No one would argue that the treaty permission was 

 a qualification of United States sovereignty. And no one would 

 doubt that the United States could afterwards enact (without antici- 

 pation of British remonstrance) such laws as it pleased, regulative 

 of all the actions of British subjects while upon United States terri- 

 tory, provided that no discrimination, injurious to British subjects, 

 were made between them and United States citizens, and that the 

 rights conferred by the treaty were not nullified. 



Some of such laws, indeed, the British Government might possibly 

 not have approved, but Her Majesty's Government could not question 

 the right of the United States to settle such questions for its own 

 people, and for all persons coming within its jurisdiction. 



45 TREATY OF 1854. 



The Reciprocity Treaty of 1854- Still more applicable and perti- 

 nent is the illustration afforded by the Reciprocity Treaty between 

 Great Britain and the United States, section one of which provided 

 as follows (App., p. 36) : 



It is agreed by the High Contracting Parties that in addition to 

 the liberty secured to the United States fishermen by the above-men- 

 tioned convention of October 20, 1818, of taking, curing, and drying 

 fish on certain coasts of the British North American Colonies therein 

 defined, the inhabitants of the United States shall have, in common 

 with the subjects of Her Britannic Majesty, the liberty to take fish 

 of every kind, except shell-fish, on the sea-coasts and shores and in the 

 bays, harbours, and creeks of Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, 

 Prince Edward's Island, and of the several islands thereunto adja- 

 cent, without being restricted to any distance from the shore, with 

 permission to land upon the coasts and shores of those colonies and 

 the islands thereof, and also upon the Magdalen Islands, for the 

 purpose of drying their nets and curing their fish; provided that, in 

 so doing, they do not interfere with the rights of private property or 

 with British fishermen in the peaceable use of any part of the said 

 coast in their occupancy for the same purpose. 



Upon this language, which, so far as the present controversy is 

 concerned, cannot be validly distinguished from the language of the 

 treaty under discussion, no such contention was ever made as that 

 which the United States now puts forward. 



