1390 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



THE PRESIDENT : Article 4 charges this Tribunal with recommend- 

 ing certain rules and form of procedure to both parties, and if the 

 parties do not agree to the recommendation made by the Tribunal, 

 both parties have the contractual obligation in article 4 to submit 

 future contestations to the Hague Court for decision by summary 

 procedure ? 



MR. EWART: Yes. 



THE PRESIDENT: Is it necessary to have a new agreement for sub- 

 mitting these future contestations to The Hague Tribunal? 



MR. EWART: Oh no, Sir. 



THE PRESIDENT : Or is the agreement in article 4 ? 



MR. EWART: It is sufficient, Sir. I rather took honourable Mr. 

 Justice Gray's question to refer to this treaty of 1818, between the 

 time of its being made and the time of this agreement being entered 

 into. He was rather asking me, or at least I so take it, and I see 

 he assents, to what could be done after the treaty was made if the 

 parties did not agree about it, and my answer therefore was general. 

 In this particular case, since this treaty, we see our way clear, and 

 we know how we can agree. 



THE PRESIDENT: By the general arbitration treaty between Great 

 Britain and the United States of the 4th April, 1908, there is in 

 article 2 the necessity of a special agreement before any contestation 

 is submitted to arbitration. Is such a special agreement necessary 

 also for submitting future contestations concerning the Newfound- 

 land and Canadian fisheries to summary procedure? 



MR. EWART : I do not understand so. 



THE PRESIDENT : You understand that article 4 contains the special 

 agreement ? 



MR. EWART : That has been my view of it. 



I have shown, Sirs, what the position was in the colonial period 

 with reference to free fishing and local sovereignt}', and have argued, 

 from what I read from the Appendix, that those two things were 

 not in any way antagonistic to one another; in fact, that the prin- 

 ciple of intercolonial operation was such as I have contended was 

 the same as that which existed under the treaty of 1783. 



I wish now to show what the situation was in the United States 

 after 1783 to show to what extent that same method of dealing with 

 the fisheries was continued afterwards; because it seems to me that 

 if I can show that this principle of common fishing, with local sov- 

 ereignty, was in existence before the treaty of 1783, and if it con- 

 tinued afterwards in the United States, that the presumption is very, 

 very strong that there was no intention to interpose between these 

 two periods such a violent change as that which is now contended 

 for by the United States. 



Two points are involved in the discussion of the situation in the 

 United States after 1783. One of them has been very clearly and de- 



