48 CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



fishing rights under these grants made to them in these general 

 terms, and during all that time there has been an almost continuous 

 discussion in which Great Britain and her colonies have endeavoured 

 to restrict the right to the narrowest possible limits, without a 

 suggestion that the crews of vessels enjoying the right, or whose 

 owners were enjoying the right, might not be employed in the cus- 

 tomary way without regard to nationality. I cannot suppose that 

 it is now intended to raise such a question. 



In Sir Edward Grey's reply (addressed to Mr. Whitelaw Reid, 

 the 20th June, 1907) he said (App., p. 507) : 



His Majesty's Government, on the one hand, claim that the treaty 

 gave no fishing rights to American vessels as such, but only to in- 

 habitants of the United States, and that the latter are bound to 

 conform to such Newfoundland laws and regulations as are reason- 

 able and not inconsistent with the exercise of their treaty rights. 

 The United States Government, on the other hand, assert that Amer- 

 ican rights may be exercised irrespectively of any laws or regulations 

 which the Newfoundland Government may impose, and agree that as 

 ships, strictly speaking, can have no rights or duties whenever the 

 term is used it is but a convenient or customary form of describing 

 the owner's or master's rights. As the Newfoundland fishery, how- 

 ever, is essentially a ship fishery they consider that it is probably 

 quite unimportant which form of expression is used. 



By way of qualification, Mr. Root goes on to say that if it is 

 intended to assert that the British Government is entitled to claim 

 that, when an American goes with his vessel upon the treaty coast 

 for the purpose of fishing, or with his vessel enters the bays or har- 

 bours of the coast for the purpose of obtaining shelter and of repair- 

 ing damages therein, or of purchasing wood or of obtaining water, 

 he is bound to furnish evidence that all the members of the crew are 

 inhabitants of the United States, he is obliged entirely to dissent 

 from any such proposition. 



The views of His Majesty's Government are quite clear upon this 



point. The convention of 1818 laid down that the inhabitants of 



the United States should have, for ever, in common with the subjects 



of His Britannic Majesty, the liberty to take fish of every 



55 kind on the coasts of Newfoundland within the limits which 



it proceeds to define. 



This right is not given to American vessels, and the distinction is 

 an important one from the point of view of His Majesty's Govern- 

 ment, as it is upon the actual words of the convention that they base 

 their claim to deny any right .under the treaty to American masters 

 to employ other than American fishermen for the taking of fish in 

 Newfoundland treaty waters. 



Mr. Root's language, however, appears to imply that the condition 

 which His Majesty's Government seeks to impose on the right of 

 fishing is a condition upon the entry of an American vessel into the 

 treaty waters for the purpose of fishing. This is not the case. His 

 Majesty's Government do not contend that every person on board an 

 American vessel fishing in the treaty waters must be an inhabitant 

 of the United States, but merely that no such person is entitled to 

 take fish unless he is an inhabitant of the United States. This ap- 

 pears to meet Mr. Root's argument that the contention of His Maj- 



