ARGUMENT OF SIR WILLIAM ROBSON. 1833 



THIRTY-THIRD DAY, MONDAY, AUGUST 1, 1910. 



The Tribunal met at 10 a. m, 



THE PRESIDENT : Will you please continue, Sir William ? 



THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL, SIR WILLIAM ROBSON (resuming) : I 

 propose, Mr. President and gentlemen, this morning, slightly to 

 deviate from the scheme of argument that I had laid down for myself 

 on Friday afternoon. I was proceeding then to compare the conten- 

 tions of Great ^Britain and the United States in respect to " bays." 

 I had pointed out what those contentions were, and I may shortly 

 recapitulate them, so that I may come clearly t.o the point of my 

 argument to-day. 



On the one hand we have Great Britain contending that the 

 United States has renounced all rights for its inhabitants to fish in 

 the bays of His Majesty's dominions, and we say that they thereby 

 renounced all right of fishery in " bays," using that word according 

 to its ordinary geographical sense; that they thereby admit that 

 which, according to us, was the undoubted and admitted fact long 

 before the treaty, viz., that we possessed over these bays a territorial 

 jurisdiction which comprised the right to exclude anyone from those 

 bays, and from fishing therein, precisely as we could exclude any- 

 one from entering our land territory. 



The United States, on the other hand, said that the word " bays " 

 was not to be construed in that general sense, but that it was to be 

 construed with reference to territorial dominion, and construing it 

 in that sense, only the smaller bays were comprised within the 

 renunciation. 



The United States did not treat the word " bays " so as to deprive 

 it of all significance, but so as to limit its significance. 



They said the word " bays " was put in there in order to indicate 

 the indentations of the coast which were to be treated as part of the 

 dominion of England, but they were only the small indentations of 

 the coast. 



Now, there is suggested to me a difficulty which I think I ought to 

 deal with at once, namely, not whether the " bays " meant small bays 

 as opposed to large bays, or territorial bays as opposed to geographi- 

 cal bays, but whether the word " bays " really had any effective mean- 

 ing whatever. 



That of course is a point which I think I ought to take first, and 

 I am very grateful indeed to the Tribunal for putting it before me, 

 so that I may deal with it at once. Before I ask what was the exact 

 scope of the word " bays," I think I am entitled to assume that the 

 word is not used there superfluously. The presumption is that it 

 was put there with some definite meaning and intent. 

 92909 S. Doc. 870, 61-3, vol 11 17 



