ARGUMENT OF ELIHU BOOT. 1989 



grant is subject to British sovereignty. If there is an implied reser- 

 vation of the powers of sovereignty, and our grant is subject 

 1204 to it, Americans must be subject to the same restrictions by 

 law as British subjects are; and that is what Great Britain 

 says. The power of Great Britain over our treaty must be com- 

 mensurate with her power of legislative control. If the treaty grant 

 is subject to the sovereign power, the sovereign power cannot be 

 subject to the treaty grant. One must be controlling, or the other. 

 The proposition of Great Britain is that her sovereignty is control- 

 ling, and, therefore, not the treaty grant. 



Every government, of course, considers itself under a certain obli- 

 gation to be reasonable, to be fair, to be just; but it is an imperfect 

 obligation. It is to be reasonable, to be fair, to be just, according 

 to its own conception of what is reasonable and fair and just. It is a 

 law unto itself. That is sovereignty. And the subjection of the 

 government to the law of reasonableness is a subjection to its own 

 will, controlled by its own idea ; and if the grievous situation of the 

 traders of Newfoundland makes it reasonable that limitations should 

 be imposed, or impairment visited upon any fishing privilege or right 

 upon the coast, that is competent to government. The standard to be 

 applied to us is the standard to be applied to British subjects, 

 we are told: we are subject to regulation because they are subject to 

 regulation ; because our right is subject to the sovereign right which 

 regulates them; and if our right is subject to the sovereign right 

 of legislation, then there is nothing unreasonable in imposing such 

 limitations upon our right as, in the exercise of their sovereign 

 judgment, they see fit to impose. It is not unreasonable for them so 

 to limit and restrict our right as to subserve the whole interests of the 

 Colony of Newfoundland or the British Empire. If our right is sub- 

 ject to their sovereignty, it is no impairment of our right for them 

 to say : " No herring shall be taken upon the west coast for six months, 

 for six years, for sixty years," or " no codfish shall be taken upon the 

 south coast. 7 ' They can do what they did do in the treaty of 1857 

 with France, which did not take effect, because the Newfoundland 

 legislature never passed the necessary legislation to make it applica- 

 ble: a treatv concluded and ratified, and effective as between Great 



v * 



Britain and France, but never becoming applicable for lack of legis- 

 lation. There they did give France, in express terms, the exclusive 

 right to fish upon the north coast, from Quirpon Island to Cape Nor- 

 man, and at five separate points down on the west coast, all on the 

 treaty coast Port au Port and a variety of other places that I do not 

 recall at this moment. If the American treaty grant was subject to 

 the legislative power of Great Britain, there would be nothing un- 

 reasonable in their exercising their right to impose that same limita- 

 tion upon us which they imposed then in favour of France. There is 



