ARGUMENT OP ELIHU ROOT. 1937 



clared contrary to the treaty, and substituted in place of it their Act 

 of the 28th March, 1874, which appears at p. 706 of the British 

 Appendix, and which says the articles of the Treaty of Washington 



" shall come into full force, operation and effect, in this Colony, so 

 far as the same are applicable, and shall thenceforth so continue in 

 full force, operation and effect, during the period mentioned in 

 Article thirty-three of the said Treaty, recited in the Schedule to 

 this Act, any law of this Colony to the contrary notwithstanding." 



Both of these correspondences I shall refer to again for other pur- 

 poses. I refer to them now with the sole purpose of attempting to 

 give definition to the line which I conceive must be drawn between 

 what it is competent for Great Britain to do in the exercise of her 

 general sovereignty, and what it is incompetent for Great Britain to 

 do in respect of the modification of our right. 



Now, to return to the question which the President asked as to 

 the concluding words of Mr. Marcy's circular advising the fishermen 

 to appeal to their own Government in case they found discrimination 



or interference with their right. 



1173 Of course it follows from the fact that Great Britain has 

 the general right of sovereignty, and the general right to pass 

 laws within that jurisdiction, that there may be, as Lord Salisbury 

 justly observes, an inadvertent overstepping of the line. That is 

 always possible, wherever you draw the line, and of course those lines 

 are not to be passed upon by fishermen, the statutes are to be re- 

 spected, and, as Mr. Marcy instructs the fishermen, appeal must be 

 made to their own Government ; as Lord Salisbury says in the letter 

 to which I have referred, the subject is to be taken up by the Gov- 

 ernments. 



No one on the part of the United States has ever been so lost to all 

 considerations of the way in which government must be conducted as 

 to claim anything to the contrary of that. 



Wherever there is doubt as to whether a law is within or not within 

 the competency of the Government which has general sovereignty 

 over the territory in which the law is to be applied, that doubt must 

 be resolved in a decent and orderly manner, in accordance with the 

 customs of nations, not by having individuals take the law into their 

 own hands and say, I will obey or I will not obey. That is tiiie, 

 wherever the line is drawn. 



But, there still remains the question, when the two Governments 

 come to consider whether a law that has been passed does overstep 

 the line of competency, where are they to find the line of competency, 

 what rule are they to apply? 



If you were to find, as I hope you will, that it is competent for 

 Great Britain to make police regulations to control the conduct of 

 persons within this territory, although it is not competent for her to 



