ARGUMENT OP SIR WILLIAM ROBSON. 1897 



very first thing it did was to put these embayed waters upon the 

 footing of ordinary landed territory. That was its acquiescence in 

 the principle of the territorial bay, and from that it ought not now 

 to be allowed to recede. 



I do not think I need go through the other passages of Mr. War- 

 ren's speech. I have dealt already with his observations about the 

 authorities. He said that there were no authorities in favour of 

 our proposition. Well, I have dealt with that. I have been through 

 the authorities down to 1818, and showed that every leading authority 

 laid down the principle for which I am now contending. And there- 

 fore I need, not take up time by repeating or recalling that part of 

 my argument. 



Another important point, a most important point as between the 

 parties, is a transaction to which my friend Sir Robert Finlay 

 referred so fully that I need not do more than simply recall it to the 

 mind of the Tribunal as part of this argument. 



This dispute about bays began, as we know, in the middle of the 

 last century, and continued with intermissions caused by the exist- 

 ence of reciprocity treaties from time to time. And then, in 1888, the 

 last reciprocity treaty of 1871 having expired, it was thought by the 

 parties that they really ought to settle this question of bays by com- 

 mon agreement. Of course, the Chamberlain-Bayard treaty came to 

 nothing ; but it is very useful, as affording an illustration of what the 

 parties thought when they sat down to make a fresh agreement upon 

 this subject. Did it occur to anybody in 1888 to say: "Every bay 

 except a 6-mile bay is open sea " ? Such a doctrine would have been 

 laughed at ; and when the two Governments tried to come to a reason- 

 able agreement they did so upon practical, moderate, sensible lines. 

 They did not give Great Britain all that it was entitled to, because 

 the matter was not being decided strictly according to legal rights. 

 If the parties had been proceeding according to a strict construction 

 of the treaty, I submit that they could not have avoided giving Great 

 Britain all its bays; but they were trying to settle the matter upon 

 reasonable lines of compromise. It was merely a compromise, and 

 what was the effect of it? Embayed waters within headlands 10 

 miles distant from each other were all to be treated as territorial; 

 and with regard to the larger bays, each was dealt with on its merits. 

 There is always a difficulty in deciding the exact limits of a bay. 

 When you have said that you are going to give a particular bay, or 

 anv number of bays, to a certain state, all you have done is some- 

 thing like what you do when you say, in a treaty of peace: "We 

 will give you such and such a province." The boundaries of the 

 province have to be delimited very carefully. And so, when you 

 have said: "We will give you bays," the bays have to be de- 

 limited. If, for instance, this Tribunal thought fit, as I humbly and 

 92909 S. Doc. 870, 61-3, vol 11 21 



