1916 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



foundland like it or not." I say it is a right which he admits to be 

 raised by this question and it is a right of which this Tribunal is not 

 entitled to deprive Newfoundland. 



It is a sovereign right. It may be very unwisely used, as other 

 sovereign rights may be, but it is the sovereign right of Newfoundland 

 and I do not think that anyone can take it from the colony. Sir 

 Charles Fitzpatrick put a question to Mr. Elder, p. 5629 [supra 

 p. 961] : 



" SIR CHARLES FITZPATRICK : You say that under the Treaty of 

 1818, in the exercise of the privileges conferred by the treaty, you say 

 you could not buy bait for the purpose of exercising your treaty 

 rights of fishing? 



"MR. ELDER: Quite so. 



" SIR CHARLES FITZPATRICK : But under your commercial privi- 

 leges, you can supplement the treaty? 



?< Mr. ELDER: Yes." 



Well, now, that is the whole point of Question 7. It is framed with 

 extreme ingenuity and ambiguity : Are the United States entitled to 

 commercial privileges? That means: Are they entitled to buy bait? 

 I say, no, we gave no such right by this treaty or in relation to this 

 treaty. No such right can be given to them at all, and no such right 

 ought to be given to them. The answer that I respectfully ask the 

 Tribunal to give to this question is : " No, they are not entitled to harve 

 commercial privileges; they have not framed the question in a way 

 that we could answer it upon documents that conferred the privileges ; 

 we cannot answer it upon those documents, and, in so far as this 

 treaty is concerned, so far from their being entitled, there is not a 



word respecting trading privileges at all." 



1159 As to all this about the United States licensing its vessels to 

 trade, I ask: What if it does? It may license its fishing- 

 vessels. We are not concerned with their licences. Their authority 

 does not bind us. We have nothing to do with that. I listened with 

 amazement to Mr. Elder's statement about the register of the United 

 States. He said : " We may have to alter our register." What if they 

 have? I do not know and I do not care what the registry of the 

 United States amounts to, and what it does. I only know that the 

 fishery right is a thing secured by a particular document with which 

 alone we are concerned in this Tribunal, and it gives no trading 

 rights, and that when the document comes to be examined and inter- 

 preted in the light of the negotiations that preceded it, it not only 

 gives no trading rights but it excludes trading rights. 



SIR CHARLES FITZPATRICK: Are trading rights conferred upon the 

 vessel or the individual? 



SIR W. ROBSON : On the individual. I cannot understand the use 

 of the word " vessel." I am taking it here because it is put in the 



