1816 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



SIR W. ROBSON : At that time coast and bays were always treated 

 differently for political purposes. I hesitate to take Sir Charles* 

 questions and answer it by a plain " yes " or " no." 



SIR CHARLES FITZPATRICK : It is not my question. I am asking the 

 meaning of your submission. 



SIR W. ROBSON : That is my submission ; because I had to keep in 

 mind Question 6 which is really a different question to that which I 

 am arguing in No. 5, and I should be sorry if the two became con- 

 fused at all. Question 6 stands on quite a different footing really to 

 Question 5, because I do not deny that you may use the word " coast " 

 generally or popularly so as to include " bays." 



Of course, whether it has been so used in any particular treaty 

 depends upon the wording of that treaty, but whenever you are using 

 the word " coast " in a way which makes it important to con- 

 1098 sider whether " bays " are included or not, you will find invari- 

 ably the statesmen of that time in that part of the world 

 always took care to specify that particular component part of a coast 

 called a bay, and treat it as different to the open coast. That is all. 

 They always treated it as different to the open coast, and said, now 

 we are going to keep it. 



In their minds, all through those years, through those great wars, 

 when North America found itself in the quarrels of Europe all 

 through those great wars, when nations were so solicitous about their 

 defences, at that time in this part everybody said we must have these 

 "bays," because to allow ships of war to rest, waiting for the decla- 

 ration of war in these sheltered places, even in the Bay of Fundy (a 

 most dangerous place), was a thing which the owners of the terri- 

 tory could not be expected to allow, and nobody interested in that 

 territory ever did allow, neither France, nor the United States, nor 

 England, nor even a country so remotely interested as Spain. They 

 all treated the jurisdiction of England as extending to bays, and the 

 moment one gets that into one's mind, all those questions of maritime 

 jurisdiction and so forth are quite intelligible. It is only when that 

 fundamental fact is ignored or forgotten, that then the words " mari- 

 time jurisdiction " begin to be a source of difficulty. 



I therefore begin with the admission that in the treaty of 1783 I 

 may construe the words with reference to that time, and whatever 

 construction I put upon those words " bays of His Majesty's domin- 

 ions," is applied equally to the same words in the treaty of 1818. 



Now then, let us see what in 1783 was the meaning attached to the 

 word "bays" from the territorial point of view? How did people 

 treat the word ? And, I look first of all to treaties. 



I will go first to them. There are not many of them. 



England and France had been fighting for supremacy in British 

 North America for a long time before the events which we have now 



