2068 NOBTH ATI -AN TIC COAST FISHKKIKS ARBITRATION. 



from this fair participation, they had nevertheless been anxious in 

 securing to themselves, an adequate extent of coast, to guard against 

 the inconveniences which they understood to constitute the loading 

 objection, to the unlimited exercise of their fishing. AVith this view 

 they had contented themselves with requiring a further extent of 

 coast, in those very quarters which Great Britain had pointed out, 

 because it appeared to them that the very small population estab 

 lished in that quarter, and the unfitness of the soil for cultivation 

 rendered it improbable that any conduct of the American fishermen 

 in that quarter could either give rise to disputes with the inhabit- 

 ants, or to injuries to the revenue." 



So you will see that the proposal for joint regulation, made and 

 accepted, under which these joint regulations were proposed to be 

 put into the treaty, was laid aside in favour of a plan which in- 

 volved pushing the United States right off on to a wild and unin- 

 habited coast, where it was not necessary to have any regulations; 

 where there could not be any collisions, for there was nobody to 

 collide with ; where there could not be any smuggling, for there was 

 nobody there to smuggle to, as indeed all these coasts were in the 

 year 1818; and where, the soil being unfit for cultivation, there \\n- 

 no probability that in the future there would be any such popula- 

 tion as to make it necessary for the negatiotors at that time, in 1M V . 

 to bother their heads about joint regulations. 



THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: May I detain the Tribunal for 01 it- 

 moment? I should like to draw attention to one point raised by 

 Mr. Root. I think I should do it at once, instead of waiting until 

 the end of his speech and then asking permission to lay it before the 

 Tribunal. 



Mr. Root thought I had been mistaken in saying that the opinion 

 expressed by the law officers of Newfoundland in 1854. I think, as 

 to the absence of local regulation at that time was a correct opin- 

 ion; and he pointed out that the earlier legislation of Newfound- 

 land had already been consolidated and repealed, re-enacted as to 

 part, in a statute of 1824, which was a five-year statute, continued 

 until 1829, continued again until 1832, and then dropped. 



Now, Mr. Root argued that 



SIR CHARLES FITZPATRICK : It was continued until 1834. and then 

 dropped. 



THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Continued until 1834 and then dropped; 

 Yes. 



Mr. Root argued that the repeal w r as permanent, although the stat- 

 ute itself was temporary; and that, therefore, when the statute ex- 

 pired there was no regulation. It is a matter of English law, which 

 the Tribunal will find in " Maxwell on Statutes," under the heading 

 of " Repeals," that if a statute repealed an antecedent statute at that 

 stage in our history it is not so now and the repealing statute itself 



