1912 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



them buy bait for their fishing; we would not even give them the 

 right to pursue the industry of fishing as a whole that is to say the 

 fishing trade in those waters. We would not let them carry on the 

 whole trade of persons who buy and sell fish. We would only let 

 them exercise one particular right, so that the jealousy of the parties 

 with regard to trading rights is apparent at every stage and step of 

 the negotiations and transactions between them. 



What right have they to come now -and ask this Tribunal to say 

 whether they are entitled to have these rights under documents which 

 they do not produce and cannot specify? I do not believe they can 

 specify one single treaty of trade in which the language can be so 

 stretched as to include fishing- vessels. Why? Because the charac- 

 teristic of a trading vessel is that it must not be allowed to hover. 

 A trading vessel has to trade. It may take its cargo in one place, 

 and deliver it in another. Taking its cargo in one place, it may go 

 elsewhere to deliver that cargo, but it must be either going or coming, 

 loading or unloading. A trading vessel is not allowed to take up its 

 position off the coast and wait about for some favourable or con- 

 venient opportunity to do something which it has not told us it is 

 going to do it may be to land its cargo conveniently, without any 

 undue interference on the part of the customs officer, in some creek, 

 or cove, or inlet. So they are not allowed to hover, and if you are 

 going to give trading vessels fishing privileges, you must take away 

 their trading privileges. 



A very pertinent question was put by the Tribunal to Mr. Elder, 

 and also for consideration on the part of counsel for Great Britain, 

 namely : " May an inhabitant of the United States fish from a trading 

 vessel ? " The answer is " yes," but if he does he must be content to 

 have the trading privileges taken away from that vessel. He cannot 

 have both. 



SIB CHARLES FITZPATRICK: Why? 



SIR W. ROBSON : Because we cannot allow a trading vessel to hover, 

 and we have complete control over trading rights. No treaty has 

 taken away from us our right to say to a nation: We will, or will 

 not, trade with you. We have absolute unrestricted control over 

 trading rights, and the United States have framed their question 

 because they felt that difficulty. They dared not ask you what their 

 trading rights are, because their trading rights may be altered to- 

 morrow. No judgment of an international tribunal upon such a ques- 

 tion would have more than twenty-four hours value. If we found 

 that these trading rights were being exercised in an inconvenient 

 way, they not only could but should be immediately recalled, and if 

 any United States' inhabitants, carrying brandy to Newfoundland 

 said: " I will amuse my leisure hours, as I enjoy all the rights of a 

 fishing-vessel, by fishing, and, for that purpose my ship shall pause, 



