100 CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



turned solely on the question whether, under the law of England as 

 it then stood, English courts had jurisdiction over foreigners in for- 

 eign ships on the open sea adjoining the English coasts; it in no way 

 affected the law as to jurisdiction over enclosed waters. The Terri- 

 torial Waters Jurisdiction Act of 1878, passed in consequence of 

 that decision, deals with offences on the open seas only; and Lord 

 Cairns, the Lord Chancellor, in introducing the Bill in the House of 

 Lords, observed that the jurisdiction to which he desired to call atten- 

 tion was not the jurisdiction in relation to rivers, bays, or harbours 

 (because in respect of them no controversy had arisen), but the juris- 

 diction over the territorial waters in that belt or zone of the high seas 

 which surrounds the shores of the Empire. 6 



BAYS IN QUESTION. 



113 Turning to the particular shores now in question, it will be 

 found that Great Britain has always claimed and exercised 

 exclusive jurisdiction over the bays on them. The statute 59 Geo. Ill, 

 cap. 38, passed in 1819 to give effect to the treaty, makes it an offence 

 for foreigners in foreign vessels to fish within 3 marine miles of 

 the bays, creeks, or harbours of the non-treaty shores, and has been 

 enforced in respect of all bays since that time irrespective of their 

 width. The Privy Council in the case to which reference has been 

 made c observed on that statute as follows : 



But the Act already referred to, 59 Geo. Ill, cap. 38, though passed 

 chiefly for the purpose of giving effect to the convention of 1818, goes 

 further. It enacts not merely that subjects of the United States shall 

 observe the restrictions agreed on by the convention, but that all per- 

 sons not being natural born subjects of the King of Great Britain 

 shall observe them under penalties. And, in particular, by section 4 

 it enacts that if ' any person ' upon being required by the governor or 

 any officer acting under such governor, in the execution of any order 

 or instructions from His Majesty in Council, shall inter alia refuse 

 to depart from such bays, he shall be subject to a penalty of 200Z. 



CONCEPTION BAY. 



No stronger assertion of exclusive dominion over these bays could 

 well be framed. As has been already observed, Conception Bay is in 

 every sense of the words a bay within NeAvfoundland, though of con- 

 siderable width, and as there is nothing to justify a construction of 

 the Act limiting it to bays not exceeding any particular width, this 

 is an unequivocal assertion of the British Legislature of exclusive do- 

 minion over this bay as part of the British territory. And as this 

 assertion of dominion has not been questioned by any nation from 



41 and 42 Viet., c. 73. 



6 Cited Halleck (Ed. Baker, 1908), vol. i, p. 191. 



L. R., 2 App., Gas., p. 421. 



