1124 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



waters, which embrace interior gulfs, or bays nearly enclosed by its 

 territory, but connected with the sea by narrow straits separated by 

 headlands, and a narrow belt of the open sea along the shore, of the 

 width, as commonly allowed, of three miles, or a cannon shot. 



" Second. The exercise of the sovereign legislative power of the 

 nation is limited to its territory as above described, except in special 

 instances where, for reasons of necessity, a nation may exercise a 

 limited legislative power over neighboring parts of the sea beyond 

 the narrow belt above mentioned. Outside of the territory of the 

 nation its laws, as laws, have, except as above mentioned, no opera- 

 tion or effect. The ships of a nation, however, are, even when on the 

 high seas, deemed to be a part of its territory." 



Leaving these statements of the position of the United States, I 

 desire to read from the same volume on p. 256, from the argument of 

 Mr. Carter: 



" Those, then, are the grounds upon which the United States asserts 

 its right to the employment of reasonable force. If it has a property 

 in the seals, that property is invaded whenever they are attacked by 

 pelagic sealers, and that property interest in the seals themselves, and 

 the necessity of defending it give the United States the right to pre- 

 vent that practice by the arrest and seizure of the guilty vessel. If 

 it should be decided that it has not a property interest in the seals 

 themselves, but has a property interest in the industry which it main- 

 tains upon the Pribilof Islands a rightful, lawful and useful in- 

 dustry then its right to arrest the practice of pelagic sealing upon 

 the sea does not depend upon a property interest in the seals but upon 

 the fact that that practice is an essential wrong, and is, besides, an 

 invasion of the rightful industry which the United States carries 

 on upon the land." 



I will pass on to the extract from the Fur Seal Arbitration Pro- 

 ceedings, relied upon in the printed Argument of Great Britain sub- 

 mitted to this Tribunal, which is found on pp. 97 and 98 of the 

 Argument of Great Britain : 



" Precisely what is the limit of jurisdiction upon the littoral sea, 

 and precisely what are the nature and extent of the jurisdiction that 

 can be asserted within it, whether it is absolute or qualified, terri- 

 torial or extraterritorial, are questions that have been a subject of 

 grave difference of opinion among jurists. Nor have they ever been 

 entirely settled. They will be found to be discussed with a fullness 

 of learning, a depth of research, and a masterly power of reasoning, 

 to which nothing can be added, in the opinions of the English 

 judges in the important and leading case of the Queen v. Keyn (2 

 Law Rep. Exch. Div., 1876-77, pp. 63 to 239). These learned and 

 eminent judges were not fortunate enough to agree upon all the 

 questions involved, and every view that can be taken of them, and 

 every consideration that is pertinent, are exhaustively presented in 

 their opinions." 



******* 



" It is under the operation of the same principle on which jurisdic- 

 tion is awarded to nations over the sea within the 3-mile or cannon- 

 shot limit, that a similar jurisdiction is allowed to be exercised not 



