ARGUMENT OF THE HONORABLE ELIHTT ROOT ON BEHALF OF 

 THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



SENATOR ROOT: Mr. President and gentlemen of the Tribunal: I 

 beg you to accept my congratulation upon the approach of the end of 

 this long task which has been imposed upon you, to listen attentively 

 and laboriously to the arguments of counsel. It has been, necessarily, 

 a severe tax, not only upon the time, but upon the powers of the 

 members of the Tribunal, for so long a period to listen and not to act. 

 Yet T cannot doubt that you will feel that the dignity and importance 

 of the controversy which is sumbitted to you justifies the demands 

 that have been made upon you. It is not alone a controversy that, 

 through lapse of time, has acquired historic interest, that, through 

 the participation of many of the ablest and most honoured statesmen 

 of two great nations through nearly a century, has acquired that 

 sanctity which the sentiment of a nation gives to the asserting of its 

 rights, but it is a controversy which involves substantial, and, in some 

 respects, vital interests to portions of the people of each nation. 



The fishermen on the coast of Massachusetts and of Maine are poor 

 and simple folk. They live upon the fruit that, with hard toil and 

 danger, they win from the waves. They are not as important a part 

 of the United States to-day as they were in 1783 or in 1818 ; but, while 

 their comparative weight and importance have declined, their posi- 

 tive importance is as great now as it was then, and greater still. 

 Every consideration that moves a sovereign nation to regard and 

 maintain the interests of its own people urges the United States to 

 press upon you this view of its controversy. 



The Attorney-General has pointed out that behind these fishing 

 communities upon the New England coast stand the eighty-five mil- 

 lions of people of the United States. Ah ! yes. But behind the fish- 

 ing communities and traders of Newfoundland stand the hundreds 

 of millions of people of the British Empire that great Empire 

 whose pride and honour it is ever to have safeguarded and main- 

 tained the interests of every citizen. And when two great nations, 

 bound to protect the interests of their citizens, however humble, find 

 themselves differing in their views of rights which are substantial, 

 find themselves differing so radically that each conceives itself to 

 have a right which it cannot abandon without humiliation, and can- 

 not maintain without force, a situation arises of the gravest im- 

 portance and the first dignity. No function can be assumed by any 



1927 



