1600 NOBTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



968 your seamen, for the benefit of your fishermen, and I will use 

 against you my fiscal powers for the benefit of my fishermen. 

 You will not import my fish, and I will not export my bait." 



Now, if there is anybody entitled to treat a subject of this kind with 

 an air of sovereign impartiality, it is, I think, the representative of 

 Great Britain. I am bound to say, in viewing the conduct of these 

 two high contracting Powers I wish to speak very respectfully of 

 Sir Robert Bond, and I say Sir Robert Bond rather than Newfound- 

 land, because when Newfoundland came to have a chance of pro- 

 nouncing on the policy, it gave a verdict of a very emphatic charac- 

 ter, which prevents us perhaps from having the pleasure of Sir 

 Robert Bond's society here to-day when these two high contracting 

 parties began this quarrel, what was there to say about reasonable- 

 ness? There are those I hope there are those who would say: 

 " You are equally unreasonable. There is not a pin to choose between 

 you. And for an operation that ought to be one of common benefit 

 and peaceful intercourse, you are both of you substituting one of war 

 and economic friction. But if one of you claims to be more reason- 

 able than the other, then I think one is entitled to ask: Who began 

 it ? " And, as it happens, Mr. Elder, in his admirable statement of 

 the case, did not begin at the beginning. He began with Sir Robert 

 Bond's refusing to sell bait. But there is an earlier step. There is 

 the United States refusing to let in Sir Robert Bond's fish. And yet 

 they are both exercising their sovereign powers within their rights; 

 and I say from their point of view, and from the point of view of 

 their fiscal policy they are both reasonable, absolutely reasonable; 

 and yet it is a kind of reasonableness of which we do not want too 

 much. 



The United States, therefore, when they asked for a sovereign 

 right, compel us to consider : How will it be used ? Reasonably, says 

 the United States. No doubt; but what is reasonableness? What 

 is your idea of reasonableness? On that I think I should like the 

 views of Sir Robert Bond. But anyhow, the element of unreasonable- 

 ness is brought within very distinct and useful limitations here by 

 the agreement of the parties. They have made an agreement in arti- 

 cle 4, to be found at p. 6 of the United States Case Appendix, to 

 which I wish to draw attention, because there arises upon it a point 

 which I think I ought to deal with at once, namely, as to how far 

 either of the present disputants may be under compulsion to refer 

 their conduct subsequent to this Award to this Tribunal. I think the 

 position of Great Britain is quite clear. I am not quite so clear 



I do not profess to speak with any degree of positiveness about it 



but I am not quite so clear as to the position of the United States. 

 Great Britain consents to this article, as does also the United 

 States: 



