1628 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



of the American fishermen, it was certainly conceived that an accom- 

 modation was afforded as ample as it was possible to concede, with- 

 out abandoning that control within the entire of His Majesty's own 

 harbours and coasts which the essential interests of His Majesty's 

 dominions required." 



So now we have both the parties of this contract, both using the 

 same language ; and what is important in this case, where we have so 

 many documents which are never communicated to the others, they 

 are both using this same language to each other. And they are both 

 treating the jurisdiction of Great Britain as exclusive. Nobody 

 dreams of saying : " We are not merely gettting your fish, but we are 

 getting your sovereignty." 



Then the same language is used in a formal offer by the United 

 States plenipotentiaries. It appears in the United States Case Ap- 

 pendix, p. 253. It is the well-known clause that they put forward, 

 and is in one of the negotiations on the 30th November, 1814 : 



" The inhabitants of the United States shall continue to enjoy the 

 liberty to take, dry, and cure fish in places within the exclusive juris- 

 diction of Great Britain, as secured by the former treaty of peace; 

 and the navigation of the river Mississippi within the exclusive juris- 

 diction of the United States shall remain free and open to the subjects 

 of Great Britain." 



There are the very words used by the negotiators and by the United 

 States in the most formal, international way, saying, " the right 

 which we have heretofore enjoyed was a right within your exclusive 

 jurisdiction. And we propose to continue it." They were always 

 insisting upon that: "It is to be continued as a right within your 

 exclusive jurisdiction." 



Then, in the British Case Appendix, p. 74, it is put a little more ex- 

 plicitly, where it is said there, in the latter half of the page, just 

 about a third of the way up from the bottom of the page : 



" The intention was, that the people of the United States should 

 continue to enjoy all the benefits of the fisheries which they had en- 

 joyed theretofore, and, with the exception of drying and curing fish 

 on the Island of Newfoundland, all that British subjects should enjoy 

 thereafter." 



So that here they are saying: "Your jurisdiction is to continue 

 exclusive. It has always been exclusive. We are only asking to 

 enjoy that which your subjects enjoy." So that I may now put my 

 case, as the Tribunal will see, higher than any mere argument 

 founded on implication. I say that here is language which is ex- 

 pressed between the parties, and which shows that both of them were 

 contracting on a basis that explicitly excluded the contention which 

 is raised here to-day. Up to now I have been saying that such a con- 

 tention could not be raised by the United States, because they had 

 not shown an adequate legal ground for implying such a term in the 



