ARGUMENT OP CHARLES B. WARREN. 1205 



Professor Holland, of the University of Oxford, in his " Letters on 

 War and Neutrality," p. 133, commenting on this decision, states: 



" The subordinate question, also touched upon by the Admiral, of 

 the character to be attributed to bays, the entrance to which exceeds 

 six miles in breadth, presents more difficulty than that relating to 

 strictly coastal waters. I will only say that the Privy Council, in 

 The Direct U. S. Cable Co. v. Anglo-American Telegraph Co. (L. 

 E. 2 App. Ca. 394), (the Conception Bay case), carefully avoided 

 giving an opinion as to the international law applicable to such bays, 

 but decided the case before them, which had arisen with reference 

 to the Bay of Conception in Newfoundland, on the narrow ground 

 that, as a British Court, they were bound by certain assertions of 

 jurisdiction made in British Acts of Parliament." 



726 Sir Robert Finlay, in the course of his oral argument before 

 the Alaska Boundary Tribunal, said, with reference to this 

 Conception Bay Case, reading from the proceedings at London, vol. 

 V., Congressional reprint, 1904, p. 237 : 



"It was not necessary in the case (Conception Bay Case) to de- 

 cide the point on the question of international law because the point 

 of controversy between the two companies was whether the waters 

 of the bay could be considered as British territory as between them, 

 and there was a statute which seemed to make an end of the point." 



Lord Blackburn, in delivering the judgment of the Judicial Com- 

 mittee of the Privy Council, stated, at p. 419 : 



" It also shews that usage and the manner in which that portion 

 of the sea had been treated as being part of the county was material, 

 and this was clearly Lord Hale's opinion, as he says not that a bay 

 is part of the county, but only that it may be 



" It seems generally agreed that where the configuration and 

 dimensions of the bay are such as to shew that the nation occupying 

 the adjoining coasts also occupies the bay it is part of the territory; 

 and with this idea most of the writers on the subject refer to defen- 

 sibility from the shore as the test of occupation; some suggesting 

 therefore a width of one cannon-shot from shore to shore, or three 

 miles; some a cannon-shot from each shore, or six miles; some an 

 arbitrary distance of ten miles 



" If it were necessary in this case to lay down a rule the difficulty 

 of the task would not deter their Lordships from attempting to fulfil 

 it. But in their opinion it is not necessary so to do. It seems to 

 them that, in point of fact, the British Government has for a long 

 period exercised dominion over this bay, and that their claim has 

 been acquiesced in by other nations, so as to shew that the bay has 

 been for a long time occupied exclusively by Great Britain, a circum- 

 stance which in the tribunals of any country would be very impor- 

 tant. And moreover (which in a British tribunal is conclusive) the 

 British Legislature has by Acts of Parliament declared it to be part 

 of the British territory, and part of the country made subject to the 

 Legislature of Newfoundland. 



"To establish this proposition it is not necessary to go further 

 back than to the 59 Geo. 3, c. 38, passed in 1819, now nearly sixty 

 years ago 



