ARGUMENT OF SIR WTLLJAM EOBSON. 1771 



customs laws, yet that those customs laws should be enforced with 

 reference to these vessels so as to cause them the least inconvenience 

 that can be arranged. That is the general principle with regard to 

 customs regulations. 



Now, consider the regulations with regard to light dues. Here, 

 again, you have what is really a case of payment for services. They 

 have been paying, under the modus vivendi, light dues; but they (the 

 United States) put them in issue here, saying that we have no right 

 to demand the payment. They have not shown any ungenerous spirit 

 in refusing the payment. The payment has been made, but they put 

 before this Tribunal the question entirely as a question of law, and 

 they say that we have no jurisdiction to impose such a burden, and 

 therefore they decline to pay it. But the fact that the burden is a 

 just and meritorious one would, I think, scarcely be denied. Of 

 course it is contended that in Newfoundland we have shown a special 

 degree of favor to our own seamen, because we have not put the 

 burden on them. The reason for that is easily suggested. The New- 

 foundland fishermen pay towards the maintenance of the lighthouses 

 as taxpayers, and they are the persons who really have to build the 

 lighthouses, and it seems a little hard on them that they should have 

 to pay for the maintenance, or pay the same as foreigners for the 

 maintenance of the lighthouses that they have themselves built out of 

 their taxes; and there is nothing unjust or inequitable in saying: 

 " We must put a reasonable tax on the foreigner, whether he be com- 

 mercial, or whether he be a fishing-vessel, and in consideration of 

 your having built the lighthouses, we will put a smaller tax on you. 

 or no tax at all. 



The question is whether that is under all the circumstances an un- 

 just discrimination. Well, now, first of all, there is very little trouble 

 about it. We look to international law to see what it says about these 

 obligations, in the absence of express contract. And I think, on light 

 dues, I shall first just read a passage from Grotius, stating the law 

 in a way in which I do not think anyone would question it. 



Grotius says: 



" Neither is it contrary to the law of nature or that of nations that 

 those who shall take upon them the burden and charge of securing 

 and assisting navigation, either by erecting or maintaining light- 

 houses or by fixing sea-marks to give notice of rocks and sands, should 

 impose a reasonable tax upon those who sail that way." 



Of course that is in the absence of any obligation whatever. In 

 that case put there, there is no treaty at all; but a person exercising 

 that which is equivalent to a treaty right, namely, the right of inno- 

 cent passage, which is not secured by document, but which is secured 

 by internatior-il law. So that the case, in reality, when one examines 

 it, is exactly parallel to the case of a right being exercised under a 



