808 APPENDIX TO BKITISH CASE. 



of such boats." In other words, jurisdiction may be asserted over 

 foreigners as well as British subjects at a distance of twenty miles 

 from land. 



The Scotch herring Fishery Act of 1889 furnishes another illustra- 

 tion in point. That Act provides that certain destructive methods of 

 fishing may be prohibited by the Fishery Board in any part of an 

 area of the open sea, two thousand seven hundred square miles in 

 extent, lying off the North east coast of Scotland, within a line drawn 

 from Duncansby Head, in Caithness, to Rattray Point, in Aberdeen- 

 shire." The Act is not confined in its operations to British subjects, 

 but provides that " any person " offending against its provisions shall 

 be liable to a fine and the forfeiture of his fishing apparatus. 



The legislation of several of the colonies of Great Britain also 

 abounds in instances of the exercise of extraterritorial jurisdiction 

 upon the high seas for the protection of different species of marine 

 life. The pearl fisheries of Ceylon extend into the open sea for a dis- 

 tance of twenty miles, and they have been the subject of a series of 

 ordinances and regulations from 1811 down to the present time, 

 which for certain purposes define the limit of marine jurisdiction to 

 be twelve miles, and for other purposes a distance which varies from 

 six to twenty miles. 



******* 



[Extract from the Argument of the United States.] 

 ******* 



The right of self-defence by a nation upon the sea, and the right of 

 municipal jurisdiction over a limited part of the sea adjacent to the 

 coast, are not to be confounded, for the two are totally distinct. The 

 littoral jurisdiction, indeed, is only a branch of the general right of 

 self-defence, accorded by usage and common consent: first, because 

 it is always necessary for self-protection, and next, because it is 

 usually sufficient for it. Upon no other ground was it ever at- 

 tempted to be sustained. That jurisdiction must be limited by an 

 ascertained or ascertainable line, is its necessary condition. That the 

 right of self-defence is subject to no territorial line, is equally plain. 

 All rights of self-defence are the result of necessity. They are co- 

 extensive with the necessity that gives rise to them, and can be re- 

 stricted by no other boundary. As remarked by Chief Justice Mar- 

 shall, " all that is necessary to this object is lawful, all that tran- 

 scends it is unlawful." 



Precisely what is the limit of jurisdiction upon the littoral sea, 

 and precisely what are the nature and extent of the jurisdiction that 

 can be asserted within it, whether it is absolute or qualified, terri- 

 torial or extraterritorial, are questions that have been a subject of 

 grave difference of opinion among jurists. Nor have they ever been 

 entirely settled. They will be found to be discussed with a fullness 

 of learning, a depth of research, and a masterly power of reasoning, 

 to which nothing can be added, in the opinions of the English judges 

 in the important and leading case of the Queen v. Kehn (2 Law 

 Rep. Exch. Div., 187677, pp. 63 to 239). These learned and emi- 

 nent judges were not fortunate enough to agree upon all the ques- 

 tions involved, and every view that can be taken of them, and every 

 consideration that is pertinent, are exhaustively presented in their 

 opinions. 



