ABGUMENT OF SIR WTLLJAM EOBSON. 1805 



into its component parts and say " coasts, bays, harbours and creeks." 

 What do you mean when you do that? Are you adding words use- 

 lessly, or are you adding words with a definite purpose in order to 

 fulfil a definite function? It is very easy to ascertain, by looking 

 ut the clause itself. If the words are just thrown in, as lawyers often 

 do they first of all use a word which is quite sufficient for its pur- 

 pose, and then begin to think : " Well, now, have we got that all right ? 

 Two or three extra words will not do any harm," and they throw them 

 in If the words " bays, harbors and creeks " are thrown in like that, 

 we can probably find out by looking at the clause itself and seeing 

 whether bays, harbours, and creeks are treated in a different way, or 

 are intended to fulfil some different function or point to some other 

 purpose. Now, look at the article of the treaty and see. There bays 

 are picked out from among the other component parts of a coast, and 

 the treaty says with regard to some of them, that is, those that are 

 called, not very accurately, the non-treaty coasts because they are 

 just as much subject to treaty as the others, but not to the right of 

 fishing and the article says with regard to some of them : " You 

 shall not enter those bays." Now that clearly shows that you cannot 

 treat the word " bay " in that case as though it were a mere summing- 

 up of the word " coast." You cannot there say, in that case, that 3 

 miles from a bay means 3 miles from any part of the coast, using the 

 word " coast " now in its general sense. If you use the word " coast " 

 in its general sense, 3 miles from any part of the coast, as Dr. Loh- 

 man in his question points out to me, might be considered as meaning 

 3 miles from any part of a line which follows the sinuosities of the 

 coast. That writes " bays " out altogether. Are they intended to be 

 written out, or struck out ? Are they intended to be treated as super- 

 fluous words? No; because when we come to another part of the 

 treaty we find that this line is not intended to be drawn within 3 

 miles of the whole of the coast, because, whenever you come to a bay 

 you have to keep 3 miles away not from the coast of the bay, but- 

 from the bay. Now, mark how this is made absolutely certain. It 

 is made absolutely certain that the bay is to be treated there as a 

 separate unit, geographically a part of the coast if you like, because 

 it says, in the proviso to the renunciation: 



" American fishermen shall be admitted to enter such bays " 

 Of course, if their renunciation simply related to a 3-mile line run- 

 ning around the coast generally, they would enter the bays; they 

 would have the right, because the 3-mile limit would go into each bajr, 

 and they would follow it. But here that is clearly not the intention 

 to treat " coast " in that sense. " Coast " here is intended to be treated 

 in a sense which admits of a 3-mile line going, not all around the 

 coast, but such part of the coast as is open, and then, when it comes 

 to a bay, it must close that bay, because here is a proviso which says 



