1770 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



a case as that, I think everybody would admit that the State whose 

 waters were being visited in that way would at once seize the vessel 

 and condemn it, as acting in contravention of customs laws, which 

 everybody knows, and to which everyone who enters into a trading 

 treaty must be taken to submit 



That is the law with regard to trading; and I fail, entirely, to see 

 why there should be any other law with regard to fishing. Of course 

 there are differences in situation. The fishing- vessel is obliged to 

 hover, to use the expression in the statute that is, to hang about, 

 to remain moving slowly, not moving by way of transferring itself 

 from one place to another, over any distance, but just simply moving 

 about, using its nets; and it also is almost obliged, in many cases, to 

 go into these little bays and creeks, if it has the right to fish within 

 3 miles; and going into these little bays and creeks, if it has the right 

 to fish there I am putting this merely by way of illustration, and 

 not stating the present case it would be very dangerous indeed to 

 allow it to exercise all these rights in places where it is so easy to 

 slip ashore and leave goods or take goods back. There are many, 

 many ways in which a fishing-vessel is peculiarly well adapted for 

 smuggling. It excites no suspicion by its hovering. A trading 

 vessel, of course, at once excites suspicion under similar circumstances. 

 If a trading vessel were seen hovering about outside some creek or 

 inlet, any passing ship might, at the very next port, report it, and 

 say: "We have seen a suspicious looking vessel hovering about in 

 such a bay or in such and such a road " ; and of course the custom- 

 house officers would come down for it. But a fishing-vessel disarms 

 suspicion. Its nets are being thrown overboard, nobody has any 

 reason to suppose it is smuggling, and nobody would, therefore, 

 voluntarily report it; and yet it is in a position in which it may 

 easily land any cargo that it pleases, without any attention to the 



revenue laws. So that the necessity for regulation which exist -= 

 1071 in the case of every trading vessel exists in a stronger degree 



in the case of every fishing- vessel ; and yet. in the ordinary 

 case of commercial treaties, you have to impose these regulations, and 

 commercial vessels submit to them without any complaint or inquiry, 

 though there are no stipulations to that effect in their treaties. So 

 the same applies to fishing-vessels. But, of course, when we come 

 to fishing-vessels, we have again to remember the implied obligation 

 of reasonableness. It may be that there are regulations that we can 

 quite easily put upon mercantile vessels because, after all. they are 

 supposed to go from port to port that might be more difficult of 

 application on fishing-vessels, which do not go from port to port, but 

 which go out into the seas and return to their port. And these facts 

 have to be considered in making regulations, so as to see that although 

 fishing-vessels are under more than ordinary obligation to obey the 



