1694 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



national patriotism. I say that the word it is only the word that I 

 am complaining of here is a word extraordinarily ill-adapted for 

 international relations, but very well adapted for the relations of 

 private property, because property knows no humiliation. You can 

 put as many insulting names as you like on a meadow, and the 

 meadow will go on producing its fruits, whatever they are, irrespec- 

 tive of the name you ascribe to it ; but if you attempt to put names 

 of that kind upon a person it is useless to tell him that they mean 

 nothing that they are only legal terms. He does not like the name; 

 and if, instead of putting it on a person, you put it on a State, then 

 you excite and naturally excite most just alarm. No State valu- 

 ing its independence, and treating regard for independence as a 

 supreme civic virtue, because that is what patriotism is, will consent 

 to any right belonging to a name so dangerous dangerous to its 

 interests and offensive to its pride; and therefore I submit to this 

 Tribunal, which is now called upon as representatives of international 

 law to deal with this concept, that the Tribunal would do well, not 

 merely to mark out carefully the limitations of such a conception, but 

 to discourage the application of the name to treaty obligations, which 

 ought to be fostered and extended; because when I pass from the 

 name to the thing, then I recognise how useful it is, how desirable it 

 is, that every State should submit to that which is here called a serv- 

 itude; how well it is that nations should open their gates that they 

 should allow citizens of foreign States to exercise rights over their 

 territory ; not a thing to discourage by a name importing every kind 

 of national offence, but a thing to be encouraged; and I think it is 

 well that obligations of a territorial class should be classed among 

 the ordinary contractual obligations, because that would deprive them 

 of their offensive association and encourage their increase and spread. 

 There is a tendency, happily growing, on the part of States now, 

 in the extension of economic relations between them, to give rights 

 to each other. But let them give these rights to each other free of 

 all doubt or fear as to the consequences in international law, and the 

 further consequences upon their national independence and national 

 pride. So I think it is a bad name. 



Now, let us look at what its definition is supposed to Vv> 



THE PRESIDENT: Was there any use made of the term and the con- 

 cept of international servitude in the public law of England and by 

 the English writers of international law about 1818 or before 1818? 



SIR W. ROBSON: None whatever; absolutely none. If I may post- 

 pone my observation for a few minutes, I have a separate part of 

 my note dealing with that. There was none at all. We have never 

 talked of servitudes. In our private law we talk of easements. 



THE PRESIDENT: What is the difference between an easement and 

 a servitude, considered from the other side? 



