1406 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



respective parties are so clearly defined by the letter of the treaty, as 

 scarcely to leave room for such questions of an abstract or general 

 character. In their actual operation, however, inasmuch as their 

 application on the part of Great Britain was to be subjected to local 

 legislation, and committed to the hands of subordinate British agents, 

 the provisions of the treaty might naturally be expected to give rise 

 to difficulties growing out of individual acts on either side. The 

 recent seizures appear to have had their origin in such causes, like 

 other causes of anterior date, to which a brief allusion may here be 

 useful." 



That passaage seems to me clearly to indicate that Mr. Vail had 

 well in his mind the British view 



JUDGE GRAY: What is the date of that letter? 



MR. EWART: 1839. the British view of this treaty, because 



he says that the "application on the part of Great Britain was to 

 be subjected to local legislation, and committed to the hands of 

 subordinate British agents" language which, of course, Senator 

 Turner would not permit himself for a moment to use. The quota- 

 tion is from a report of the Acting Secretary of State to the Presi- 

 dent of the United States. It was afterwards embodied in a 

 despatch from Mr. Forsyth to Mr. Stevenson (British Case Ap- 

 pendix, p. 124, the second paragraph). The language there 

 849 is almost precisely the same as that which I have just read. 

 Perhaps the members of the Tribunal will be satisfied with 

 merely casting their eyes over it. The particular words which I 

 emphasised, I think, are textually the same. That language was sent 

 on by Mr. Stevenson to Lord Palmerston in a regular State commu- 

 nication (at the top of British Case Appendix, p. 126). The lan- 

 guage, I think, is almost identical again ; the particular words that I 

 refer to are perhaps a little varied : 



" It appears, however, that in the actual application of the pro- 

 visions of the convention, (committed on the part of Great Britain 

 to the hands of subordinate agents, subject to and controlled by local 

 legislation,) difficulties, growing out of individual acts, have unfortu- 

 nately sprung up from time to time," 



THE PRESIDENT: Do these letters apply to regulations which have 

 been made concerning the exercise of the fishery, or do they apply 

 to the exclusion from the 3-mile zone? 



MR. EWART : Not to regulations particularly ; the language is gen- 

 eral. I quote them as indicative of the frame of mind of the men at 

 that time, and as showing that these men never conceived the idea of 

 putting forward the construction which has been suggested by the 

 United States Argument and by Senator Turner. x 



JUDGE GRAY : Beside the Act of 1824, at the time of this letter what 

 regulations were there authorised by legislation? 



