ABGUMENT OP SIR WILLIAM ROBSON. 1633 



needed any further refutation, that the power was original and inher- 

 ited, and wanted no grant to enforce it; and they dispose also of the 

 suggestion that the grant, when made, was co-equal and co-sovereign, 

 and carried with it jurisdictional power. 



Really I cannot put my case stronger than it is given me there, in 

 one significant word by Mr. Rush, a signatory of the treaty. If Mr. 

 Rush were here and gave as evidence just that single sentence, if he 

 said the intention of the parties to that treaty was that this should be 

 a liberty held by the United States " under " England " within her 

 jurisdiction" is the phrase used again and again, and "under her 

 law " I could not put our case more strongly. And he goes on to 

 speak in other passages of the same character I do not need to 

 trouble about them where he says this liberty was held at the hands 

 of Great Britain, and so on. Again I pause 



JUDGE GRAY : I do not quite understand, Mr. Attorney-General, the 

 significance of that phrase as you seem to put it. I hope I am not 

 interrupting you ? 



SIR W. ROBSON : Not at all, Sir. I am much obliged for any ques- 

 tions. 



JUDGE GRAY : The words you read are : 



" It is obvious that if Great Britain cannot make good the title 

 which the United States hold under her to take fish " &c. 



Do you mean that those words " under her " are to be taken as 

 recognising a situation in which the right to fish is taken subject to 

 a sovereign right to regulate ? 



SIR W. ROBSON : I think, Sir, with the other expressions that I 

 have indicated, that that is the sense in which Mr. Rush is using that 

 language. 



JUDGE GRAY : Is there not another sense in which it could be taken ? 

 Cannot the words: 



" cannot make good the title which the United States hold under her 

 to take fish " 



be applied to make the step in an ordinary devolution of title? A 

 grantee takes " under " his grantor in that sense. It does not mean 

 that he takes under any reserved rights of the grantor. 



SIR W. ROBSON : It might, I dare say, be limited to title, in a sense 

 which would not necessarily carry with it jurisdiction, which, I think, 

 is the point that Mr. Justice Gray is putting to me. I think it might 

 be limited in that way ; but I am taking it as the concluding sentence 

 of a correspondence in which one takes the meaning of each word in 

 reference to the other passages in the correspondence, where you are 

 getting references to exclusive jurisdiction, and you also have the 

 observation made again and again that the right is to be exercised 

 within that jurisdiction. 



