ARGUMENT OF SAMUEL J. ELDER. 1519 



go a step further, the certificate that would be required is not that 

 which has been satisfactory to Great Britain for a hundred years, but 

 it is a certificate that all the persons on board who are going to fish 

 are inhabitants of the United States, because that is precisely what 

 Sir Edward Grey's contention came to not that everybody on board 

 an American vessel was an American citizen, but that everybody on 

 board who was going to fish was an American. So we have a reductio 

 ad absurdum a certificate from the United States, going beyond all 

 previous certificates and certifying that everybody on board a vessel 

 who is going to fish is an inhabitant of the United States. All that 

 Sir Edward Grey himself asked, and he did ask that, was that the 

 certificate should contain the statement that the persons on board 

 who were going to fish were inhabitants of the United States, United 

 States Case Appendix, vol. ii, p. 976 : 



" His Majesty's Government are unable to agree to these proposi- 

 tions," 



I ought to have stated that propositions 4, 5, and 6, which I have 

 already read, are the ones which he is discussing 



except with the reservations as to the status of American vessels 

 under the Convention already indicated, and with reference to propo- 

 sition 6. they would submit that the assurance to be given by the 

 Department of State of the United States should be that the persons 

 by whom the fishery is to be exercised from the American vessels are 

 inhabitants of the United States." 



So that the point to which my argument has come is the point to 

 which Sir Edward Grey has come, and that is that he insists that 

 the certificate hitherto granted by the United States is not sufficient 

 and that it must contain something further, namely, the 

 919 assurance of the State Department of the United States that 

 the persons by whom the fishery is to be exercised from Ameri- 

 can vessels are inhabitants of the United States. 



Now that is an analysis of the question which it seemed to me de- 

 sirable to make in order to appreciate it fully, and my answer to that 

 proposition is that the fact that Great Britain has been contented 

 with a certificate issued since 1818 is the strongest possible reason why 

 the United States should not be compelled to change it now, especially 

 under the circumstances of stress that have been apparent in New- 

 foundland. The next answer I would make is that at the time of 

 the treaty of 1818 the practice, not only of the United States but of 

 Great Britain and all other countries, was to employ on board their 

 ships men of various nationalities, and the treaty was made with 

 that fact well-known and understood by the negotiators. 



Before I come to that, though it leads into it I ought to speak 

 of a matter on which Great Britain has quite largely relied in its 

 92909 S. Doc. 870, 61-3, vol 10 40 



