ARGUMENT OF SIR. WILLIAM ROBSOff. 1635 



we look for our rights, and if you do not make good those rights, then 

 we think you must make some compensation for their loss. I think 

 it is the very subordination of the American position which they are 

 pleading against their own sovereign : " We are in your jurisdiction. 

 Being in your jurisdiction, you must make your jurisdiction good." 

 Still, as I say, I do not wish to lay too much stress upon a single 

 passage where, after all, one is not deciding this argument upon 

 meticulous phrases. I am endeavouring to put my argument so 

 that the language may be dealt with as a whole; and I think, as a 

 whole, there can be no doubt that the United States were then taking 

 exactly the position that I have indicated. 



SIR CHARLES FITZPATRICK: Does not the very use of the word 

 " eviction " imply that ? 



SIR W. ROBSON: Yes. 



SIR CHARLES FITZPATRICK : Would a Sovereign be evicted from its 

 territory ? 



SIR W. ROBSON : That strengthens my argument, of course. 



SIR CHARLES FITZPATRICK: Would it be conceivable that a sov- 

 ereign Power would claim that it was being evicted, and appeal to 

 another Po\ver to protect it from eviction ? 



SIR W. ROBSON : That, I think, would be a very strong point in 



favour of the construction for which I am contending. But I do not 



want to take up too much time in the construing of a particu- 



989 lar phrase. One wants to look at the thing broadly because 



that w T as not part of the contract ; that was not used as a part 



of the contract. I am only using it as indicative of a state of mind; 



that is all. 



Now, to sum up the position that the United States took in rela- 

 tion to that liberty, and compare it with my own position now. The 

 United States contended then that the jurisdiction and sovereignty 

 of Great Britain remained sole and undivided. " Sole sovereignty " 

 is its own language. The United States contended that the jurisdic- 

 tion, and all other rights of sovereignty, every one, remained with 

 and belonged to Great Britain and not to France; that France had 

 no right of doing herself summary justice; and that she had no juris- 

 diction whatever, but only a liberty. And that is my position to-day. 

 And it excludes absolutely the construction that the United States 

 seek to put upon the contract. 



All this time, as the Tribunal will bear in mind, we were going on 

 regulating the fishery, and the United States was accepting that 

 position. 



It is scarcely necessary, but I will read here just one passage from 

 Oppenheim, upon this question of interpretation, in order that I may 

 not appear to be submitting these facts as merely my own ideas, but 

 to fortify myself with the name of some authority ; though, in truth, 



