1596 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



servitude carries with it, without any need for explicit statement, or 

 agreement, but by mere force of international law, which is to be 

 read into any contract that is made by the parties, all these conse- 

 quences with regard to the sovereignty that I have just been 

 describing. 



A servitude is dependent entirely upon grant, so that we have to do 

 here with practically two courses or grounds of action : The one inde- 

 pendent of grant the grant, indeed, present but subordinate, as a 

 mere acknowledgment of an existing right: and the other wholly 

 dependent upon grant ; and a grant which apparently is to have 

 somewhat remarkable consequences, because the grant is the con- 

 cession of a liberty to individuals, but. under the skilled construc- 

 tion of learned counsel on the other side, it becomes not a concession 

 of a liberty to individuals, but a conveyance or grant of sovereignty 

 to a Government. In fact, say the United States: "Because yon have 

 given our fishermen a share in your fish, you have, without knowing 

 it, given us a share in your Government. 



The grounds, as I have said, are not very consistent: but I will 

 not stop to criticise that. I do not much mind the inconsistency of 

 these grounds of action, because it is open to any counsel, and we all 

 do it, and do it rightly, to adopt alternative grounds of action. 

 When we get our story from our client we may entertain doubts as to 

 whether the evidence may come up to the full measure of the proofs 

 of witnesses that are laid before us, and we take care therefore 

 966 to provide ourselves with good legal arguments, however the 

 facts may turn out. But the United States have not put these 

 two grounds of action alternatively. They have not done that. And 

 I think they have though I must not be too confident I think they 

 have abandoned the first ground of action, that which I have spoken 

 of as a claim to joint sovereignty, independent of grant, but result- 

 ing from the continuance of antecedent rights. I think they ha\e 

 abandoned that. Mr. Turner, however, kept it alive for the purpose 

 of his argument, and I therefore cannot escape dealing with it to 

 some extent. He said, p. 1781 [p. 293 wpra] : 



"The United States has no difficulty in admitting that its rights 

 here are to be measured by the treaty of 1818 .... construed, how- 

 ever, in the light of the history of the two countries preceding it in 

 which this historic claim of partition " 



This partition of empire, on which he founds the division of sov- 

 ereignty 



" and the contention concerning the effect of war on the Treaty of 

 1783 have and play a very important part." 



So, as I understand it, the legal position of the United States, if 

 I have it exactly and if not. I am sure I shall be corrected by Mr. 



