ARGUMENT OF SAMUEL J. ELDER. 1565 



" The main principle upon which you must proceed is, to give to 

 all the words their common meaning; you are not justified in taking 

 away from them their common meaning, unless you can find some- 

 thing reasonably plain upon the face of the document itself to show 

 that they are not used with that meaning, and the mere fact that 

 general words follow specific words is certainly not enough." 



Applying this doctrine to this case, it is clear that the word 

 " coast " includes bays, harbours, and creeks, and this Tribunal would 

 have to find something plain, something like " a declaration plain 

 to the contrary," in order to cut the meaning of that word down. 

 "We are reminded that for ninety years the " declaration " was not 

 so clear that anj^body ever dreamed of it, and it was reserved to a 

 gentleman, whom Sir Charles referred to as not being a lawyer, to 

 find it out between the month of April 1904 and the month of April 

 1905. 



I want to call the attention of the Tribunal to another authority. 

 The British Case dealt with this question at some length. The Coun- 

 ter-Case confined itself to about so much space [indicating with his 

 thumb and forefinger] in the discussion of this Question 6, and the 

 Argument refers to some extent to the matter in the Case. But they 

 carefully refrain from any mention of the contemporary or subse- 

 quent interpretation of this treaty. When the President of the Tri- 

 bunal called the attention of Sir James Winter to the report of the 

 Assembly in Newfoundland in 1845, United States Case Appendix, 

 vol. ii, p. 1068, which conclusively showed that at that time the As- 

 sembly, or the parties who reported to it. understood that bays were 

 included, Sir James said, in effect, that he protested against the Tri- 

 bunal considering any of these matters that had occurred since, that 

 these reports were written by people who did not know and were 

 ignorant in regard to this subject and that undoubtedly the Tribunal 

 would find a great many instances of this kind in the intervening 

 period of time. He wanted the treaty interpreted as if it were made 

 yesterday, and wanted you to suppose that this treaty was presented 

 to you just as if it were made yesterday. Well, it was not made yes- 

 terday. There were men alive for a number of years after it was 

 made who had taken part in making it and who probably knew some- 

 thing in regard to it. Some of their views I want to call attention to. 

 In the year following the making of the treaty, on the 14th June, 

 1819, an Act was passed by the British Parliament when everybody 

 knew what this word " coast " meant. I ought to have alluded to 

 the fact that throughout these negotiations, referring to every report 

 that is available to us, no one makes the suggestion anywhere that 

 this word " coast " was to be limited, or that the bays on the west 

 coast of Newfoundland were to be excluded. It was never whis- 

 pered. If this " joker," if I may be pardoned the expression, was in- 



