AEGUMENT OF JOHN S. EWART. 1239 



all events, that much something upon which you could argue that 

 the British Government had admitted that United States fishermen 

 could go within 3 miles of the shore. 



That was not thought to be sufficient, and when the United States 

 were drawing a statement of their position for the Halifax Com- 

 mission, they evidently did not think that that argument was quite 

 good enough; and they abandoned the fishermen's theory and took 

 up the territorial view. 



The territorial view, of course, is one in which the fishermen's idea 

 has no place. When you come to the territorial view, you are not 

 at all interested in the view that the 3-mile line follows the sinuosities 

 of the coast. You are now arguing that it does not. You are argu- 

 ing that it follows the coast where it is unindented, and that it cuts 

 across territorial bays where there are such. And so it is quite con- 

 tradictory of the fishermen's theory. The fishermen's theory has got 

 nothing to do with territoriality. You merely follow the coast, ter- 

 ritorial or non-territorial; it does not make the slightest difference. 

 Whenever you are 3 miles from the coast, you may fish, and when- 

 ever you are inside of that distance, you may not. Take up the other 

 idea, territoriality, and you get away from the fishermen's construc- 

 tion of the treaty altogether. The question is then : " What is a ter- 

 ritorial bay ? " Wherever you get it, cut across it. You do not 

 follow the sinuosities of the coast, according to the fishermen's idea. 



So, Sirs, the United States draftsmen of the Halifax proceedings 

 abandoned the fishermen's idea, and the} 7 took up the territorial idea. 

 I refer to British Case Appendix, at p. 256, at the foot of the page, 

 where I read an extract from the answer of the United States of 

 America to the case of Her Britannic Majesty's Government: 



" For the purposes of fishing, the territorial waters of every coun- 

 try along the sea-coast extend three miles from low-water mark ; and 

 beyond is the open ocean, free to all. In the case of bays and gulfs, 

 such only are territorial waters as do not exceed six miles in width 

 at the mouth, upon a straight line measured from headland to head- 

 land. All larger bodies of water, connected with the open sea, form 

 a part of it. And wherever the mouth of a bay, gulf, or inlet exceeds 

 the maximum width of six miles at its mouth, and so loses the char- 

 acter of territorial or inland waters, the jurisdictional or proprietary 

 line for the purpose of excluding foreigners from fishing is measured 

 along the shore of the bay, according to its sinuosities, and the limit 

 of exclusion is three miles from low-water mark." 



The United States had abandoned an unsustainable theory because 

 it was unsustainable: and they took up one which, to my mind, Sirs, 

 is complicated with difficulties far greater than those that attend 

 the fishermen's theory. In the fishermen's theory you are confronted 

 only with one point the construction of the treaty : " Does the 3-mile 

 line follow the sinuosities of the coast, or does it cut across the bays ? " 



