2076 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



1256 the position which Great Britain took and upon which sin- 

 stood before the world to justify herself for refusing to 

 America the further exercise of the rights granted by the treaty of 

 1783. It is essential to his purpose that in arguing, in stating, and in 

 maintaining that position upon that all-important subject, he should 

 >tate the nature of the right, for the question whether it survived or 

 perished with the war depended upon what the nature of the right 

 was, and in this paragraph that I will now read he states that. I have 

 read it once before for another purpose, but I beg you to bear with 

 me if I road it again in order that I may bring to your minds tin- 

 effect of it upon the argument which I am now endeavouring to make. 

 He says: 



" The Minister of the United States appears, by his letter, to be 

 well aware that Great Britain has always considered the liberty 

 formerly enjoyed by the United States of fishing within British 

 limits, and using British territory, as derived from the third article 

 of the treaty of 1783, and from that alone," 



Upon that his whole argument rested. He proceeds 



" and that the claim of an independent state to occupy and use at Us 

 discretion any portion of the territory of another, without compensa- 

 tion or corresponding indulgence, cannot rest on any other founda- 

 tion than conventional stipulation." 



There is the authentic and unimpeachable declaration of the 

 Government of Great Britain as to the character of the right that 

 they conceived themselves to have granted to the United States under 

 the treaty of 1783, and that they authorised these negotiators to re- 

 grant in the treaty of 1818. It was the right of an independent 

 State to occupy and use at its discretion a portion of the territory of 

 Great Britain. Of course, they would not for a moment think of 

 imposing upon such a right a reservation of the right of municipal 

 legislation. That is why Lord Bathurst, in this very letter com- 

 plaining of the difficulties that had arisen in the exercise of the right 

 under the treaty of 1783, proposed not to pass laws to remedy the 

 injury. lut proposed joint regulations with the United States to 

 remedy it. It is because the United States so understood it that they 

 accepted his proposition, and power was sent to the American Min- 

 ister in London to negotiate for joint regulations. 



SIR CHARLES FITZPATRICK : May I ask you whether or not the 

 claim of an independent State, which you have just referred to. has 

 reference to the first paragraph of the same letter on p. 273 ? 



SENATOR ROOT: Undoubtedly. 



SIR CHARLES FITZPATRICK : He is answering the grounds advancer! 

 in the letter of the United States Minister. Let me carry you back 

 further, to p. 272, and ask you whether or not you think that the 



