1782 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



mo re because, of course, nobody else can do it but the local author- 

 ity. If the territorial seas were open to the world at large, in such 

 a sense that the world at large could place buoys and lighthouses 

 there, they might be left to do it; but of course they are not. No 

 Government will allow a foreign Government to come and place 

 lighthouses and get a little extra-territorial spot in its own dominions. 

 Therefore it must be done by the local authority, and as it must be 

 done by the local authority, and is not done for the benefit of the 

 local authority alone, both by international comity and common 

 sense and common fairness they are allowed to make some charge for 

 that purpose; and that is admitted by the report of the Senate in 

 1887 I thing it was the minority report of the Senate Committee 

 which says American deep sea fishermen have no greater rights by 

 treaty or public law in British ports than British fishermen have in 

 American ports, so far as concerns revenue, police, and maritime 

 tolls or taxes, pilotage, lighthouses, quarantine and all matters 

 ceremonial. 



There is a broad, sensible, and most accurate statement of the 

 general law, not by lawyers, but, as I say, by men who are engaged 

 in the conduct of trade. The common law is recognised. If there 

 can be international law at all, this is a strong case of it, as covering 

 all maritime tolls. Light dues constitute essentially a maritime toll. 

 The minority report, as I say, referred to "maritime tolls or taxes, 

 lighthouses, all matters ceremonial," and so on. 



Now, with regard to Newfoundland, just to finish my statement of 

 the statutes, there is nothing fresh in principle to add. The statute 

 of 4 Wm. IV, cap. 4, imposed dues for the maintenance of the light- 

 house at St. John. That is long before Newfoundland was peopled 

 at all. It was not settled. Those dues were imposed upon all vessels 

 except coasters and fishing-boats. 



Then subsequent Acts of 1835, 1839, and 1852 imposed dues on all 

 vessels, but coasting- and fishing-vessels to pay on a lower scale. So 

 that there is always a little indulgence given to the fishing-vessels of 

 the jurisdiction which is exercising the right to impose the toll. 

 That is, every country, apparently, in making a charge upon all ves- 

 sels, including its own, for light dues, has, occasionally not inva- 

 riably, but occasionally made some special reduction for its fishing- 

 vessels. The United States, as we see, charged all fishing-vessels 

 alike, but I have no doubt that other statutes which I have not before 

 me made such exceptions as I have indicated. In fact, the very 

 statute to which I have referred made a differentiation in favour of 

 its own fishing-vessels, because it was only foreign vessels that were 



to pay the tax. 



1078 THE PRESIDENT: Is this differentiation in favour of national 

 fishing-vessels not in contradiction to the sense you attribute to 



