ARGUMENT OF SIR WILLIAM EOBSON. 1903 



as to " bays " in other parts of the world, the " bays " of British 

 North America were in a different class, a class by themselves. They 

 were decided by these treaties at all events as between Great Britain 

 and the United States. Whatever may be international law, those 

 two nations have bound themselves in respect of " bays " in British 

 North America. There has been no inconsistency there. But the 

 speech of my noble friend Lord Fitzmaurice was cited, in which he 

 said that there was a unanimity of opinion (I think he was going 

 a little farther there than was strictly accurate) a unanimity of 

 opinion about the bays with which he was dealing, that is, bays in 

 Europe. He was dealing at that time with the Moray Firth case in 

 Scotland. That might be. I am not saying it was so, but even if 

 it had been so, it would not have affected this argument. He was 

 not dealing with British North America. British North America 

 was not in his mind at the time. He was dealing with the Moray 

 Firth, and he made this statement with regard to European bays, 

 and " bays " under the general international law, not affected by 

 particular treaties ; and he made a very wide statement. But I notice 

 that after it was made there was some qualification in a debate about 

 a year later. He refers to his former speech and he says : 



"As Lord Salisbury's name has been so frequently invoked " (Par- 

 liamentary Debate, Wednesday, llth November, 1908) " I cannot 

 do better than quote his words in the debate of 6th May, 1895, in 

 regard to the three-mile limit and to those particular places where 

 what may be called the facts of nature have made difficulties in 

 applying that hard and fast principle and caused some slight modifi- 

 cation in practice. Lord Salisbury said " 



And here follows the quotation, which, of course, Lord Fitzmaurice 

 is giving by way of approval, or with his approval : 



" 'As long as the coast is open there is no doubt that three miles is 

 the limit of territorial waters, but when the coast is folded, and 

 doubled, as it is in that part of Scotland,' " 



Still only dealing with that, and not with British North America 



" ' there comes in a different set of conditions which belong to diplo- 

 matic law ; and I may say it is an unsettled question in international 



law how far those territorial waters extend in such cases 



Where the coast is not straight but makes an angle, there the limit 

 of the territorial waters is not so fixed.' ' : 



And then Lord Fitzmaurice adds : 



" It is precisely because many of the waters on the coast of Scotland 

 are folded in that many of these difficulties arise." 



That is dealing with general international law. 



My position here is that in this particular controversy we are not 

 dealing with general international law ; we are dealing with the law 

 of the two parties that which they made a law for themselves by 



