ARGUMENT OF SIR WILLIAM ROBSOtf. 1885 



The whole thing is as clear as daylight, until one applies the in- 

 genuity of the hostile eye, and begins to say : " Well, now, can we not 

 get rid of these plain words in some indirect way ? " 



I have dealt, now, with the point that, at all events, the word 

 " bays " had an important signification, that it could not be treated 

 as an idle word. 



The point is practically finished, but I still will have to proceed 

 a little further, and I am sure the Tribunal will forgive me if I give 

 some attention to this, even at the cost of an extra hour or two. The 

 people in Canada and Newfoundland are anxious about it, and I am 

 sure an hour or two will not be grudged, in order that one may keep 

 one's position perfectly clear about it. There is a further point 

 which has to be dealt with, and can be dealt with with comparative 

 brevity. 



The United States do not put up the point with which I have been 

 dealing. What they do is to say: "Oh, yes; we give effect to the 

 word ' bays ' and to that proviso which says we shall not enter bays; 

 but we do it by constituting a particular kind of a bay, namely, a 

 6-mile bay, got by doubling the 3-mile limit." And already, if my 

 argument is appreciated as far as it has gone, I have really answered 

 that, in anticipation. I grant them the 3-mile limit. When I say I 

 grant them the 3-mile limit, I mean I do it for the sake of the argu- 

 ment. It does not affect my argument a bit, because I have established 

 that bays are separately dealt with. I have shown that bays are on an 

 absolutely different footing, and everybody knew it, and everybody 

 agreed. So that the step which the United States has to take, and 

 which it cannot take, is, from the 3-mile limit to the 6-mile bay. By 

 what right does it take that step? It has no right whatever to say 

 that bays are to be so limited. The whole of Mr. Warren's argument 

 never once suggested that in 1783 anybody had ever heard of a 6-mile 

 bay. He did not suggest that anybody had ever heard of a 6-mile 

 bay in 1818 ; not once. Why, therefore, should the word " bays " be 

 carried out of its geographical sense, and limited in this purely arti- 

 ficial way? There is only one way by which it can be done. The 

 United States say the words " of His Majesty's dominions " indicate 

 that it is not the open geographical bay which is to be regarded, but 

 the bay formed by the 3-mile limit. That is the argument to which 

 I would like to address still a few words before I close. 



The word " dominion " is that upon which they place reliance. I 

 would like to ask what justification they have for that argument. 

 The word " dominion," in the singular, may be said to be a geo- 

 graphical term, indicating a particular place under the dominion of a 

 particular sovereign ; or it may be an abstract term, used as synony- 

 mous with the word " control." You may say : " I have dominion 



