1722 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



ground of objection. I only want to draw attention to this; I am not 

 making any complaint, or anything of the sort; I am only just trying 

 to understand our own position in the matter. They have put for- 

 ward all these regulations. There is a great number; in fact it 

 really might be rather convenient to have them in existence in order 

 to show what a lot of excellent regulations we have made, because 

 they are all set out here, but there is no exposition of the grounds of 

 objection. Well, we have to put our answer in within a week, and I 

 only thought it would be desirable to draw the attention of the 

 Tribunal to the fact that all we can say in answer to these different 

 provisions is just to refer to our case generally. There are no expla- 

 nations and no exposition why they object to any particular regula- 

 tion other than the mere general statement that they object to all. 

 They object to them on the ground that they are not appropriate or 

 necessary for the protection and preservation of the fisheries, and that 

 they are not desirable on grounds of public order and morals, and so 

 on. So I hope the Tribunal will understand that we are not seeking 

 to avoid dealing effectively with any objection they may put forward ; 

 but all we can do is simply to give to these objections a general 

 denial, just as they have put them forward in a perfectly general 

 way without any exposition of their particular reasons. I would 

 respectfully invite the United States and their distinguished repre- 

 sentatives to consider whether it is worth while dealing with all these 

 different regulations one by one, as they obviously all depend on the 

 general question : Is Great Britain entitled or not to make any regu- 

 lations whatever? I throw that out just to explain the character of 

 the answer that we would be obliged to give within the week. 



Now, I pass, and pass with pleasure, to the second question, a very 

 simple question, as I venture to submit, so simple that I have some- 

 times been inclined to wonder how really it comes to be put at all, be- 

 cause you can scarcely put this question to an international tribunal 

 without the question almost answering itself. I take it, by permission 

 of the Tribunal, first of all free of all controversy, of what I might 

 call the historical controversy, out of which the question may possibly 

 have arisen. I take it first of all just as a plain question put to an 

 international Tribunal in relation to a treaty with which we are all 

 so familiar; and I say, most respectfully, but confidently, that there 

 can be only one answer to it when one takes the question literally and 

 simply and in relation to the international law. 



Now, what is the question ? 



" Have the inhabitants of the United States, while exercising the 

 liberties referred to in said article, a right to employ as members of 

 the fishing crews of their vessels persons not inhabitants of the United 

 States I" 



