1000 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



However, before I read this statement, without professing an 

 excessive amount of information as to the internal government of 

 Great Britain, I might say that I understand, that when these ques- 

 tions are put in the British Parliament, they are put in writing and 

 notice is given, a certain number of days, which, if I carry the 

 number in my mind, I believe is five, before a reply is expected from 

 the Government to any question so put by any member of the House 

 of Lords or of the Commons; and that when the reply is made, the 

 member of the Government best informed on the subject-matter indi- 

 cated by the question makes that reply; and that it is therefore a 

 formal, indeed, a very formal, proceeding in the Parliament of that 

 great nation. 



This statement, as I said, is found in the " Parliamentary Debates," 

 vol. clxix, and is under date of the 21st February, 1907. The reply 

 to a question so put was made by the Under-Secretary of State for 

 Foreign Affairs, Lord Fitzmaurice, and was as follows: 



" I pass to the position of the Foreign Office. The jurisdiction 

 which is exercised by a state over its merchant or trading vessels 

 upon the high seas is conceded to it in virtue of its ownership of them 

 as property in a place where no local jurisdiction exists." 



That is a recognition of dominium, in behalf of the Foreign Office 

 of Great Britain. 



601 " Therefore, the first thing that, in these cases, the Foreign 

 Office has to ask is, Was there or was there not, territorial juris- 

 diction in the place where the alleged events occurred? In regard to 

 that I can certainly say that according to the views hitherto ac- 

 cepted by all the Departments of the Government chiefly concerned 

 the Foreign Office, the Admiralty, the Colonial Office, the Board of 

 Trade, and the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries and apart from 

 the provisions of special treaties, such as, for instance, the North Sea 

 Convention, within the limits to which that instrument applies, 

 territorial waters are: First, the waters which extend from the 

 coastline of any part of the territory of a State to three miles from 

 the low- water mark of such coastline; secondly, the waters of bays 

 the entrance to which is not more than six miles in width, and of 

 which the entire land boundary forms part of the territory of a 

 State. By custom however and by Treaty and in special convention 

 the six-mile limit has frequently been extended to more than six 

 miles." 



There is no question but that by convention, and by assertion of 

 jurisdiction and acquiescence, the extent of jurisdiction may be en- 

 larged, and that it has frequently been so enlarged; and that is what 

 the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs intended by that 

 statement. 



When this has been and is the position of that great Government, 

 I conceive that it rmght be more disturbing to the peace of the world 

 should this Tribunal determine, by its award that the contention here 



