1554 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



ture of it is the same, and it is quite natural that when persons are 

 drawing an agreement between parties who had a previous one, that 

 they should use the old agreement, but it is to be remembered that 

 they were drawing a new treaty, to have it different, and for the pur- 

 pose of having it different. 



More than that, the question that was being considered under 

 Question 6, where that language is used, is the meaning of the word 

 " coasts." 



Now, if the meaning of the word " coasts " had changed between 

 1783 and 1818, had become more definite or different, Great Britain 

 undoubtedly would have pointed it out to us with great care, and 

 showed in what way the word " coasts " had changed in its meaning, 

 and very properly. ' 



And so with regard to the word " bays," the United States does 

 point out that between 1783 and 1818, notably in the years shortly 

 preceding 1818, the word " bays " had come to have, between these 

 two countries at least, a definite and distinct meaning which was 

 in the minds of the negotiators. Just exactly as if two concerns were 

 operating under a patent, and had an agreement and used certain 

 terms of trade, and they afterwards proposed to make another agree- 

 ment. In the meantime the terms in the trade had come to have 

 a clearer and more definite meaning in the minds of everybody con- 

 cerned in that trade. For instance, terms of art, terms of commerce, 

 terms of patent claims anything of that description. Of course, 

 though they use the same word in the second agreement that they 

 did in the first, they would nevertheless be using it in the sense in 

 which everybody understood it at the time of the second. And so 

 with regard to the word " bays." 



Now to revert to the British contention under Question 6. They 

 place it almost wholly on the fact, I think I am quite right in saying 

 almost wholly, or rather Sir Robert Bond placed it, and they placed 

 it where he did, on the fact that the word " coast " alone is used 

 with reference to the southern and western part of Newfound- 

 041 land, and that the word " coasts " is used in connection with 

 the words " bays, harbours and creeks," in speaking of Labra- 

 dor. They say, therefore, that the word " coast," having the same 

 meaning in different parts of the treaty, must be understood to mean 

 something different from " ba} r s, harbours and creeks," that is to 

 say, the coast, with the bays, harbours and ceeks subtracted. 



An inquiry made by the President of the Tribunal at an early stage 

 of this argument seems to counsel for the United States to throw 

 complete and illuminating light upon this entire subject, and this 

 entire question. It is the plural " coasts " that is used with regard to 

 Labrador, and not the singular " coast," which is comprehensively 

 used of Newfoundland. In other words, when Labrador is spoken 



