1200 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



stipulations as stated; and that, in accordance with the statement 

 made in the British Case, on p. 103, which I have just a short time 

 since read, since 1888 this Question has not been a subject of discus- 

 sion between the two nations. And I submit that it is plain that this 

 Question has not been, for something over twenty years, at issue at all 

 between the Dominion of Canada and the Government of the United 

 States, or between the Colony of Newfoundland and the Government 

 of the United States, until 1905, when other matters, quite apart from 

 the Question now immediately under consideration, induced the 

 Colony of Newfoundland to take certain actions concerning which I 

 am not called upon to express any opinion, as they are not material 

 to the Question that I am presenting to the Tribunal. 



Mr. President, I have attempted to present the facts relating to 

 this Question as faithfully as I could and in as good a spirit as I 

 could, and I have tried to be fair in stating the facts as I find them in 

 these records before this Tribunal. I now leave the facts to take up 

 the law applicable to this Question, confidently believing that it is 

 established that in 1818, when this treaty was negotiated, it was 

 understood between these two nations that the fishing- vessels of the 

 United States should only be excluded from waters 3 miles from 

 land, and from bays, creeks, or harbours lying landward of that 3- 

 mile line. The area of water involved in the bodies of water, which 

 during the progress of the argument have come to be called trian- 

 gular bodies has been shown to be of no practical importance what- 

 ever. The negotiators really aimed to lay down the 3-mile from 

 shore rule in the great outer bays. That was the important matter. 



The United States is confident, as I have said, that the facts abun- 

 dantly establish the true interpretation of this renunciatory clause of 

 the treaty. 



Chancellor Kent states in his work : 



" The intention is to be collected from the occasion and necessity 

 of the law, from the mischief felt, and the remedy in view, and the 

 intention is to be taken or presumed according to what is consonant 

 to reason and good discretion." 



I have brought to the attention of the Tribunal the practical diffi- 

 culties which the treaty of 1818 was intended to overcome, as dis- 

 closed by the correspondence between the two Powers immediately 

 preceding the negotiation of the treaty, and by the negotiations be- 

 tween the two countries just prior to the period in which the treaty 

 was agreed upon, and I submit that all lead, when read in connection 

 with the treaty itself, necessarily to the conclusion that a " Bay of 

 His Britannic Majesty's Dominions in America " is such a body of 

 water as is within the 3-mile line following the sinuosities of all the 

 coasts, including the coasts of all the great bodies of water, whether 



