2000 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: In reference to the question that the 

 President was good enough to put to me, which I am sorry I missed 

 at the time owing to my attention being directed elsewhere, I under- 

 stand it to be as to whether the limit of five years, which appears in 

 the general treaty of 1908, would put any term to the provisions of 

 the Special Agreement of 1909. 



THE PRESIDENT: Yes. 



THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL, : It seems to me that, so far as article 4 is 



concerned, certainly not. Article 4 is not limited by any term, 



1211 but is expressly agreed between the parties as relating to the 



future, generally ; so that it would not be a terminable article 



at all, so far as affects the subject-matter of that article. 



SENATOR ROOT: Now, may it please the Tribunal, I have, in a very 

 informal way, examined the effect of the British theory presented 

 here in argument upon the practical situation as it exists in New- 

 foundland, and for that purpose have considered the nature of the 

 British right as contended for by Great Britain. 



I now ask the attention of the Tribunal to some consideration of 

 the other side of the picture ; the nature of the American right as 

 contended for by the United States, and the legal effect, as bearing 

 upon the practical rights of the parties, in the prosecution of the in- 

 dustry to which the treaty relates, of the nature of the right of the 

 United States as we deem it to be. 



The first consideration which it seems to me lies at the bottom of 

 any just view of the right of the United States is that it is a national 

 right, and not a right of individuals. The treaty is a treaty made 

 between sovereign and independent nations. The grant which the 

 treaty contains is a grant to the United States. There is no privity 

 of contract or estate between Great Britain and the inhabitants of the 

 United States, or between the United States and the subjects of Great 

 Britain. 



We speak in a colloquial way about the grant of a fishing right, 

 about the treaty granting the right to fish, and about the inhabitants 

 of the United States receiving from the treaty the right to fish, but it 

 is a colloquial use of terms. Using terms with the precision that is 

 appropriate to a consideration of the legal consequences that flow from 

 their use in a formal solemn instrument like a treaty, we must reject 

 that very general and colloquial expression or series of expressions 

 and consider what this treaty actually does. The contracting party 

 with Great Britain is the United States of America, the nation, the 

 sovereign and independent nation. What does it get under the con- 

 tract made with it by Great Britain? It gets something, of course. 

 It is plain upon the face of the contract AA-hat it gets. It gets the right 

 that its inhabitants shall have for ever, in common with the subjects 

 of His Britannic Majesty, the liberty to take fish of every kind upon 



