1904 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



their contract; and I dare say, in future controversies about bays, if 

 anybody is industrious enough to do what I am quite sure I shall 

 never do, and read this speech of mine through from end to end. they 

 will probably find passages which they will say show that Great 

 Britain was laying down a different rule with regard to bays here 

 to that which it has laid down elsewhere. 



We are doing nothing of the kind. We are not dealing with bays 

 in Europe, or else I should have been wasting your time in going 

 through all this correspondence with regard to the parties in North 

 America. We are dealing with bays here; we are not dealing with 

 general propositions of international law. They may be left to be 

 dealt with by international lawyers, acting, as I hope some day they 

 will act, with the general assent of the European Powers. Of course, 

 until that assent is given, what international lawyers may think or 

 say will carry very little weight. But no European Power, and 

 no American Power, will consent ever to let international law set 

 aside treaties. That is the very foundation upon which international 

 lawyers must proceed. 



Here it is a treaty we are construing, and by a treaty we seek to be 

 bound. 



I was asked whether the Moray Firth judgment had been appealed, 

 and I answered on the spur of the moment I find correctly that 

 the judgment on appeal was delivered in 1906. There has been 

 1152 no appeal from that judgment. It was delivered in 1906 by a 

 full court of Scotch judges (I think there were twelve judges), 

 and there is no appeal from that decision. It was a criminal case, 

 and no appeal lies from that decision. So that there you have a 

 judgment in which the territoriality of Moray Firth is affirmed by 

 the Scotch judges, acting upon British statute law, which of course 

 they were competent to administer, and which alone they would be 

 competent to administer, and so they decide that Great Britain, at 

 all events, has claimed that bay. That is the law as it now stands, 

 and as it stands, that judgment is law, and affirms the territorially 

 of that bay, which is a great deal more than 6 miles. 



Then there was another point I wished to refer to. 



There was a question during the course of the controversy about an 

 opinion delivered by the English law officers, I think in the 1840's, 

 where they had given an opinion as to the French user of the west 

 coast of Newfoundland. They had said that the French coast of 

 Newfoundland was subject to the exclusive user of France. I call 

 it "French coast" because that was a name popularly given to it. 

 Of course it was the British coast, subject to the French right. They 

 said that the French were entitled to exclusive user. They said that. 

 on the strength of those words in the treaty, which say that the 



