1952 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



right possessed by Great Britain, and that is of importance in deter- 

 mining what the right is. So I think it is fair to infer that that pur- 

 pose may have led to the insertion of these words. 



So much for the meaning of " in common," which is all I am ad- 

 dressing myself to now, and not to the legal effect of the words in 

 combination with the other words of this article. The words have 

 an ordinary, natural, undisputed significance as negativing exclusion 

 and carrying into the right granted the limits of the rights possessed 

 by the grantor; the first, certainly, because that is the use that the 

 parties had been making of the phrase in writing and speaking about 

 the subject; and the second, possibly, perhaps probably, because it 

 was natural in view of the situation in which the grantor nation was. 



I pass to the meaning of the word " inhabitants." Some point has 

 been made about that. I think it is used as an equivalent for " sub- 

 jects " or " citizens," in a general way, as indicating the great body of 

 human beings who make up the organised civil society called the 

 United States. There was a rational explanation for the use of the 

 term " inhabitants " instead of " subjects " or " citizens." Of course 

 it was taken into the treaty of 1818 from the treaty of 1783 and the 

 preliminary articles of 1782. In 1782 the relations of the individuals 

 to the organised civil society were quite vague and unsettled. Men 

 were very much accustomed to group the members of the different 

 divisions of an empire or kingdom under the head of subjects. The 

 person of the sovereign was the nexus. In 1782 they were cutting off 

 the head of this organised society in which the King of Great Britain 

 had united the people living in these thirteen colonies, the people liv- 

 ing in the British Islands and the people living in the northern col- 

 onies in America, and they had not quite settled how the relations be- 

 tween the individuals should be described in lieu of describing them 

 as subjects of this King who was no longer uniting them. In the 

 articles of Confederation, which appear in the British Counter-Case 

 Appendix, p. 7, you will see that uncertainty : 



"Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union between the 



States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay," 

 1181 And so forth. The date is the 9th July, 1778. 



"Article I. The style of this confederacy shall be, 'the 

 United States of America.' 



" Art. II. Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and inde- 

 pendence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by 

 this confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Con- 

 gress assembled. 



" Art. IV. The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship 

 and intercourse among the people of the different States in this 

 Union, the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vaga- 

 bonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all 

 the privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States." 



