1614 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



rights were acknowledged in the treaty of 1783. They had, as it 

 now appears, no rights in the legal sense there at all, except their 

 right to fish there, or to fish on the coast board of certain colonies, 

 subject strictly to local jurisdiction. That is the only right they had, 

 and when we come to their enjoyment, as far as these fisheries are 

 concerned, it is no exaggeration, or very little exaggeration, to say 

 that they had none. They had had some enjoyment, but none of the 

 extent and substance that one might suppose them to have had from 

 the speeches which have been delivered on that part of the case. 



THE PRESIDENT: The last statute that you have been referring to 

 was one of the Government of Lord North ? 



SIR W. KOBSOX: Yes; I am putting it in evidence in order to 

 show that the inhabitants of the United States did not enjoy on the 

 coast of Newfoundland the right of free fishing; but, still, it is sub- 

 ject to the observation that it is a statute passed at a time when 

 the two nations were at war and that therefore it is to be received 

 cum grano salis. But, to take the best of American evidence, that 

 submitted by one of the American negotiators before the Treaty 

 of Ghent, from the year 1783 I am dealing with the period ante- 

 cedent to 1783 there was very little enjoyment of the fishery; sub- 

 sequent to 1783 there was some. Mr. Russell says, at p. 154 of the 

 Appendix to the Counter-Case of Great Britain, that : 



" From the year 1783, to the commencement of the present war, the 

 actual advantages derived from the fishing privilege by the people 

 of the United States, were, according to the best information that I 

 can obtain on the subject, very inconsiderable, and annually ex- 

 periencing a voluntary diminution." 



Well, now, that takes away the last shred of supposed hardship 

 on the United States. They have put their case as being that of a 

 nation enjoying an ancient and hereditary right, invaluable to its 

 citizens, and one which they really must insist upon enjoying as 

 long as the ocean slept, or did not sleep, in its rocky bed. Now, it 

 turns out that they had no rights of ownership at all. that they 

 were always subject to the local jurisdiction and that they had a 

 very little share practically none before we gave it to them by 

 international treaty in 1783. 



There is just one observation I must make, therefore, before I leave 

 this point of antecedent right. The United States is now asking that 

 it shall have a right to fish without regulation, or without our regu- 

 lation, on these coasts by virtue of this historic part of the case. 

 What would the other colonies have said and what would the United 

 States have said, when they were colonies themselves, supposing a 

 colony had come and said : We are given by statute the right to fish 

 on your coast? Supposing that Quebec had gone to Massachusetts 



