844 APPENDIX TO BEITISH CASE. 



I desire at the outset to place on record my appreciation of the 

 moderation and fairness with which Mr. Root has stated the Ameri- 

 can side of the question and I shall in my turn endeavour to avoid 

 anything of a nature to embitter this long-standing controversy. 



It will be convenient to recapitulate the main grounds of diverg- 

 ence betwen the two Governments on the question of principle. 



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

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

 itants of the United States and that the latter are bound to con- 

 form to such Newfoundland laws and regulations as are reasonable 

 and not inconsistent with the exercise of their Treaty rights. The 

 United States Government, on the other hand, assert that American 

 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 owners' or masters' 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 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 seek 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 appears 

 to meet Mr. Root's argument that the contention of His Majesty's 

 Government involves as a corollary that no American vessel would 

 be entitled to enter the water of British North America (in which 

 inhabitants of the United States are debarred from fishing by the 

 Convention of 1818) for any of the four specified purposes, unless all 

 the members of the crew are inhabitants of the United States. 



