40 COUNTER CASE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



The reasonableness of regulations. 



In the discussion of the subject under consideration in 1906, 

 between Mr. Eoot and Sir Edward Grey, after pointing out that " the 

 claim now asserted that the Colony of Newfoundland is entitled at 

 will to regulate the exercise of the American treaty right is equiva- 

 lent to a claim of power to completely destroy that right," Mr. Root 

 said: 



This Government is far from desiring that the Newfoundland 

 fisheries shall go unregulated. It is willing and ready now, as it has 

 always been, to join with the Government of Great Britain in agree- 

 ing upon all reasonable and suitable regulations for the due control 

 of the fishermen of both countries in the exercise of their rights, but 

 this Government cannot permit the exercise of these rights, to be sub- 

 ject to the will of the Colony of Newfoundland. The Government 

 of the United States cannot recognize the authority of Great Britain 

 or of its Colony to determine whether American citizens shall fish 

 on Sunday. The Government of Newfoundland cannot be permitted 

 to make entry and clearance at a Newfoundland custom-house and 

 the payment of a tax for the support of Newfoundland lighthouses 

 conditions to the exercise of the American right of fishing. If it be 

 shown that these things are reasonable the Government of the United 

 States will agree to them, but it cannot submit to have them imposed 

 upon it without its consent. This position is not a matter of theory. 

 It is of vital and present importance, for the plain object of recent 

 legislation of the Colony of Newfoundland has been practically to 

 destroy the value of American rights under the Treaty of 1818. 

 Those rights are exercised in competition with the fishermen and 

 merchants of Newfoundland. The situation of the Newfoundland 

 fishermen residing upon the shore and making the shore their base 

 of operations, and of the American fishermen coming long distances 

 with expensive outfits, devoting long periods to the voyage to the 

 fishing grounds and back to the market, obliged to fish rapidly in 

 order to make up for that loss of time, and making ships their base 

 of operations, are so different that it is easy to frame regulations 

 which will offer slight inconvenience to the dwellers on shore and be 

 practically prohibitory to the fishermen from the coasts of Maine and 

 Massachusetts; and, if the grant of this competitive right is to be 

 subject to such laws as our competitors choose to make, it is a worth- 

 less right.* 



As an example of the character of the regulations which are re- 

 garded by the colonial authorities as reasonable and which would be 

 enforced against American fishermen in the treaty waters, if the con- 

 currence of the United States to such enforcement was unnecessary, 

 the attention of the Tribunal is called to the Newfoundland Foreign 

 Fishing- Vessels Act of 1905. In the diplomatic correspondence con- 



U. S. Case, p. 225. 



