ARGUMENT OF ELIHU BOOT. 2033 



the territory of Great Britain, and they do not apply any reservation 

 to that right. 



I say it is quite incredible that they should have refrained from 

 following the custom following their own custom following the 

 custom that obtained between the two countries employing the same 

 familiar expression which they themselves had employed in the treaty 

 they were re-enacting in regard to trade and travel rights, if they 

 intended or dreamed of the idea that this right in the territory of 

 Great Britain conveyed in Article 1 was to be subject to such 

 regulation. 



THE PRESIDENT: Please sir, was it not necessary to make, in the 

 Treaty of Commerce for instance in 1815, a distinct disposition con- 

 cerning the exception of foreigners? Was it not at that time, and I 

 believe still in some of the States of the United States, and, if I am 

 not wrong, in Great Britain also, the rule that foreigners cannot 

 acquire landed property, and was it not necessary to make this excep- 

 tion? If this exception had not been made, then foreigners could 

 have claimed the right to be proprietors of land. I believe, if I am 

 not quite wrong, in the year 1815 neither the laws of Great Britain 

 nor the laws of the United States admitted in general foreigners to be 

 proprietors of land, or there were at least some dispositions discrimi- 

 nating between foreigners and citizens. 



SIR WILLIAM ROBSON: In 1871 there was a statute permitting 

 aliens to hold land in Great Britain; prior to that time aliens had 

 no such right. 



THE PRESIDENT: And for saving this discriminatory disposition, 

 and probably other discriminatory dispositions between the rights of 

 foreigners and citizens, it was perhaps necessary to insert in the 

 Treaty of Commerce of 1815 a disposition like this, whereas, as to 

 the exercising of the fishing industry, the subjects of both States 

 should be treated on the principle of equality, in common, so that 

 such a disposition was not necessary. 



SENATOR ROOT: There undoubtedly may have been a variety of 

 reasons for subjecting foreigners to the laws of Great Britain on the 

 one side, and of the United States on the other; one of them may 

 have had reference to the laws regarding alienage and title to prop- 

 erty; but, it remains, nevertheless, that the method employed to 

 bring about the subjection to the laws was this express reservation, 

 and if it had been intended that the fishermen should be subjected to 

 laws of Great Britain respecting their right, the same method would 

 have been adopted. 



I shall draw an inference from the observation of the President 

 in favour of the position which I am taking, and that is, that they 

 saw no reason why American inhabitants going upon the treaty 



