2004 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



SENATOR ROOT: Its own inhabitants, yes. We do not claim any 

 right over British subjects that we deny to Great Britain over ours. 

 I mean, we do not in respect of this very treaty right. Of course, 

 we do not claim any such right in that vast field of jurisdiction which 

 exists, because that is British territory, and which is not affected at 

 all by this question. 



JUDGE GRAY : The sovereign to whom this right is granted may also, 

 following out your own line of argument, relinquish or destroy it by 

 renouncing the treaty? 



SENATOR ROOT: Precisely; it may relinquish or destroy it; and in 

 this treaty it does renounce and destroy the right which it claimed to 

 have, and had had under the treaty of 1783, in regard to the great 

 extent of British treaty coasts other than this special reservation. 



SIR CHARLES FITZPATRICK : Going back to the legal proposition, the 

 power to regulate a treaty right to be exercised in foreign territory 

 seems to me necessarily to involve the power to protect that treaty 

 right, to protect the inhabitant in the exercise of that treaty right. 

 Sovereignty must include that, surely, as a legal proposition ? 



SENATOR ROOT: It involves, not by grant of the treaty, but as the 

 existence of every right involves, the right to make war in its defence ; 

 not a right granted by the treaty, but the superior and all-embracing 

 right of independence to defend one's rights. We claim under this 

 treaty no right whatever to the exercise of force in British waters. 

 We say that as to this treaty right, with its narrow powers of sov- 

 ereignty over the exercise of a liberty by our own citizens, and with 

 regard to every right that the United States possesses, there may 

 come a time when we shall be compelled to defend our rights; but we 

 appeal to no treaty as the basis of that defence; it is because we are 

 an independent nation, and it is essential to independence that at 

 times a nation shall be ready to maintain its independence by main- 

 taining its rights. 



THE PRESIDENT: If you please, Mr. Senator Root: Is your propo- 

 sition that American fishermen, in exercising their industry in British 

 waters, only depend upon American sovereignty, and not upon the 

 territorial sovereignty of Great Britain? 



SENATOR ROOT: My contention is that American fishermen, exer- 

 cising the liberty in British waters so far as regards the entire range 

 of personal conduct, are under British sovereignty. 



THE PRESIDENT : Yes, I forgot to qualify the question. 



SENATOR ROOT: But so far as the method and time and manner of 

 exercising that liberty, and the conditions upon which they shall exer- 

 cise it are concerned, they are dependent upon their own government. 

 They take no right from Great Britain. They take the right from 

 their own government, which received from Great Britain the power 

 to give them that right. 



