DESPATCHES, BEPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 815 



reference whatever to the inner coast line in question. The only 

 coast with which we are dealing is the inner coast, the physical coast, 

 the coast defined by the contact of the sea with the land. 



The result of the British claim that the line shall be drawn from 

 headland to headland is that a principle which became established 

 in international law for the purpose of giving additional rights as 

 incident to the ownership is perverted to the purpose of determining 

 what shall be considered coast. It could only apply where there was 

 admitted sovereignty over a coast line, and then only for the purpose 

 of giving, by enlarging the jurisdiction beyond the actual coast, 

 accessorial rights. It was never adopted and has never before been 

 applied for the purpose of determining the sovereignty over coasts. 

 What was adopted as a shield for the protection of the coast is turned 

 into an instrument for dissevering it. 



The British Counter Case (p. 28) quotes from Mr. Joshua Bates 

 who in 1853 says : " This doctrine of the headlands is new." And yet 

 it is sought to make it appear that the negotiators for the Treaty of 

 1825 must have intended to apply it, for the purpose of determining 

 what was "coast " as that word was used by them. 



******* 



Dr. Hannis Taylor, one of the United States Counsel in his oral 

 argument said : 



******* 



* * * The simple proposition that I have been trying to em- 

 phasize is that this political coast line is outside that archipelago, 

 and when a political coast line has been once established by a country 

 as against foreign nations it is impossible for any political coast line 

 to be established behind it. 



I say that that is a self-evident proposition, because according to 

 the statement of Hall all these interior waters are nothing but salt 

 water lakes. And it is no extreme statement, because if my proposi- 

 tion is true, this statement is true; it is just as irrational to talk 

 about a political coast line in Loch Lomond as it is to talk about a 

 political coast line back of that archipelago. If I am right one 

 position is just as untenable as the other. So that I say if the Brit- 

 ish Counsel shall undertake to contend that under any circumstances 

 or for any purpose an interior coast line can exist here they have to 

 maintain their proposition on one of two bases : they have to support 

 it by reason, or they have to support it by authority. It has to have 

 something to rest upon. 



I say it is absolutely repugnant to reason, because the whole 

 "raison d'etre" of the political line is a barrier or bulwark set up 

 by a nation so that it may have territory for three miles from its 

 coast just as if it were land for the purpose of protecting itself 

 against foreign states. That is the reason of its existence, and in the 

 great case of the Franconia, where the most exhaustive investigation 

 ever made in the history of international law was made, as to the 

 existence of that line and its " raison d'etre," nothing could be more 

 clearly illustrated, if it requires illustration, than that the purpose for 

 which it exists is the purpose of a bulwark against foreign states. 

 The authority of Rivier. if authority is needed, is a demonstration 

 that the political coast line is simply a legal creation; it is a fiction 

 of law. 



