1846 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



SIR W. ROBSON : Yes. 



THE PRESIDENT: That rather ambiguous formula was probably 

 adopted because they did not quite know what were the rights of the 

 French. If the rights of the French were exclusive, then Briti-h 

 fishermen might not go to that part of the coast, and American fisher- 

 men also could not go. 



SIR W. ROBSON : If, in fact, the British fishermen used the bays. 



THE PRESIDENT: Yes. 



SIR W. ROBSON : I do not think they did. However, I take all that 

 against me, because I want to make good my point on Question 5. 

 So, whether I am right or wrong on that later question, I will keep 

 my difficulties in reserve until I come to that point, and I will assume 

 that here, in dealing with Question 5, the answer is against me on 

 Question 6, so as to keep my argument untrammeled as far as possi- 

 ble, and to be able to present it in a clear form. 



I read this, therefore, taking "coast" as meaning, say, "biy-" 

 there, and then, going on to " coasts, bays, and creeks of His Britan- 

 nic Majesty's dominions." I want to pause for a moment on those 

 words, because those are the words that I have to deal with on Ques- 

 tion 5 : " Coasts, bays, and creeks." On the assumption on which I 

 am now arguing, the word " coast " in the antecedent sentence in- 

 cluded " bays." Why, then, in this sentence which immediately 

 follows, in the very next line, does not the word " coast " include 

 bays? It does not. The negotiators will not allow " coasts " to in- 

 clude " bays." Geographically I am still keeping to the assumption 

 I said I would geographically, "coasts" includes "bays." Why, 

 then, were the negotiators not content with the known geographic 

 use of the word? There was a very good reason. Coast, for the 

 purposes of territory or fishing, implied a certain maritime belt of 

 water, which nowadays is put at 3 miles, and then was put at vary- 

 ing figures. A bay meant more than that. For instance, take the 

 then maritime limits, say at 9 miles, then you could have buys and 

 did have bays more than 20 miles across; so that the coast line carried 

 round the bay would leave a portion of the middle of the b.iy open 

 water. Everyone knew that. Everybody knew that a coast-line 

 carried round the bay what Mr. Ewart called the " fisliermanV 

 theory " which, as I have said, the United States once held and put 

 forward and then abandoned left in the middle of the bay a certain 

 amount of open water, which would not be regarded as territorial 

 if the coast-line were followed. So that foreign fishermen would get 

 admission to the bay although they could not and would not have 

 any right to get to the shore of the bay. They would have no right 

 to land. That gave a very imperfect protection to the fishing in 

 bays, and it gave a very imperfect protection to the right to exclude 

 foreigners. If once you got your fishing boats into a bay, everybody 



