52 COUNTER CASE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



By Article III of that treaty, it was agreed that " French subjects 

 shall have the right, concurrently with British subjects, to fish on the 

 coasts of Labrador from Blanc Sablon to Cape Charles and of North 

 Belleisle, together with liberty to dry and cure fish on any of the 

 portions of North Belleisle aforesaid, which shall not be settled when 

 this Convention shall come into operation ; " a which provisions 

 would have resulted, if the treaty had gone into operation, in the very 

 thing which the British Case now claims that the United States 

 cannot do. 



It is a self-evident fact that the objection to the introduction of for- 

 eign fishermen in British waters on the ground that it would impair 

 the share of the British fishermen therein cannot apply to the em- 

 ployment on American vessels of British fishermen in those waters. 

 Great Britain's objection to having British fishermen employed on 

 American vessels must, therefore, rest on other grounds, but what these 

 grounds are is not disclosed in the British Case. Necessarily the ac- 

 ceptance of employment on American vessels by British fishermen is 

 voluntary on their part, and fishing from the same vessels would 

 seem to be a convenient and harmonious way of enjoying the common 

 liberty of fishing under the treaty. 



With reference to the employment of foreigners on American 

 vessels, the various objections raised in the British Case, in opposi- 

 tion to the contentions of the United States on this feature of the 

 Question, are matters of argument rather than evidence, and do 

 not require examination here. It should be noted in passing, how- 

 ever, that, as already pointed out, the employment on American 

 vessels of foreigners who are inhabitants of the United States can- 

 not be objected to under the treaty, and that no question about such 

 employment is included within the scope of this Question. 



It should also be noted that, in discussing this feature of the 

 Question, the British Case seems to have assumed, as a basis for 

 argument, that the liberty of fishing under the treaty was secured 

 only for the benefit of a specific class of the inhabitants of the 

 United States, and that this class consisted of the fishermen, and 

 that they were entitled to take fish only for themselves, as appears 

 from the statement in the British Case that " a liberty to a specific 

 class of persons to take fish themselves is necessarily restricted 



U. S. Case, Appendix, p. 60. 



