ARGUMENT OF SAMUEL J. ELDER. 1579 



the United States, in the pains of child-birth bring forth a little 

 mouse like this, and lay it on the table before this Tribunal. 



Great Britain rests its contention very largely on the word " en- 

 titled," which is in the question" entitled to have." Entitled to 

 have what? That is the next question. " Commercial privileges on 

 the treaty coasts, accorded" how? By the treaty of 1818? No. 

 "Accorded by agreement or otherwise." Accorded anyhow. In 

 whatever way we have obtained commercial privileges, the question 

 is whether fishermen are entitled to use them, or are debarred from 

 using them. If there had been the slightest intention of asking 

 whether the commercial privileges were granted by the treaty of 

 1818, that sentence could have been framed very easily : " Entitled to 

 have the commercial privileges on the treaty coasts accorded by said 

 treaty; " because it has just mentioned that treaty. It does not say 

 that. It says, " accorded by agreement or otherwise." Accorded in 

 any sort of way. The word " otherwise " shows distinctly that the 

 utmost generality of the method by which our commercial privileges 

 were accorded is presented. It is not the question whether they were 

 accorded by one treaty or another, or any treaty whatever; it is a 

 question concerning commercial privileges " accorded by agreement 

 or otherwise." 



The generality of that word " otherwise " shows that there was 

 nothing of the source, extent, or character of the commercial privi- 

 leges with which this Tribunal was to be troubled at all. It takes 

 for granted that commercial privileges are granted somehow, by 

 agreement or otherwise, and the question is whether United States 

 fishermen are entitled to exercise them. So that we say that this 

 question assumes conclusively, and as the basis on which it rests, that 

 some commerical privileges have been accorded to the United States, 

 and that it is not of importance to this Tribunal to examine what 

 they are. But we are not dealing with any moot question, and I will, 

 for the instant, allude to existing commercial privileges. None what- 

 ever existed in 1818, in any of those waters up there ; but gen- 

 956 eral commercial privileges, so far as the British North Ameri- 

 can colonies were concerned, were first extended to the in- 

 habitants of the United States by British Order-in-Council of the 5th 

 November, 1830, British Case Appendix, pp. 570 and 571. Reciprocal 

 commercial privileges were granted by the United States for the 

 benefit of the inhabitants of those colonies by Act of Congress of the 

 29th May, 1830, and by at Presidential proclamation of the 5th Octo- 

 ber, 1830. That is in the British Case Appendix, at p. 786. 



The Order-in-Council of the 5th November, 1830, recites, in a 

 variety of " whereases," the steps of which led up to the granting of 

 the rights. It recites that His Majesty is satisfied that British ves- 

 sels (and it describes them twice in the last paragraph on p. 570, as 



