2040 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



to the United States, put in no reservation of a right of regulation 

 and control. 



Is it open to us then to decide rights upon the assumption that these 

 negotiators supposed that the grant to the United States would 

 carry an implied right, an implied reservation of the right to do what 

 never had been thought of with regard to the French right? Nor 

 are we to suppose that the negotiators ever dreamed that Great 

 Britain would want to regulate the fisheries. She was not regulating 

 the French fisheries. Why should it be supposed that she would 

 expect to regulate the American fisheries upon the same coast? 

 There stands that great concrete fact which the negotiators could 

 not ignore, and we cannot ignore, excluding any possible idea of an 

 implied reservation or of an intention that there should be a reser- 

 vation of the right to regulate. 



THE PRESIDENT: May I ask one question, Mr. Senator Root, con- 

 cerning the British conception of the French right ? Was it neces- 

 sary for the British Government to make any regulation concerning 

 the exercise of the French right? In fact, they had recognized the 

 exclusiveness of the French right. May I draw your attention to 

 the last few words of section 1 of the British statute of 1788, which 

 is the statute concerning the treaty with France, British Case Ap- 

 pendix, p. 561. I read four lines from the top of p. 563 



"also all ships, vessels, and boats, belonging to His Majesty's sub- 

 jects, which shall be found within the limits aforesaid, and also, 

 in case of refusal to depart from within the limits aforesaid, to 

 compel any of His Majesty's subjects to depart from thence; any 

 law, usuage, or custom, to the contrary notwithstanding." 



Does it not follow from this statute that the British Government 

 considered that British subjects had no right on that coast at all, 

 and that, therefore, they had no reason to make regulations concern- 

 ing that coast; whereas, with respect to the American fishery right, 

 which was to be exercised in common by American and British sub- 

 jects, there might be reason for the British Government to regulate. 

 SENATOR ROOT: That strengthens my argument, Mr. President, 

 which is, that having before them the example of the French right, 

 under which they had been compelled to abandon the practical con- 

 current use, or common use, and under which the effect of the grant 

 had been wholly to exclude them from applying their laws and regu- 

 lations to the French right, if they did not want such a result to 

 happen under the grant to the Americans the British would, of 

 course, have put in an express provision to prevent it from happen- 

 ing. My proposition is that the presence of this great French right 

 and the annoyance, difficulty, turmoil, embarrassment which Great 

 Britain had suffered from her exclusion from all practical control 

 over this very coast, was a most cogent reason why, if the nego- 



