ARGUMENT OP ELIHU ROOT. L'077 



claim spoken of by Lord Bathurst is that set forth by Mr. John 

 Quincy Adams in these words: 



" Upon this foundation, my lord, the Government of the United 

 States consider the people thereof as fully entitled, of right to all the 

 liberties in the North American fisheries which have always belonged 

 to them; which in the treaty of 1783, were, by Great Britain, recog- 

 nised as belonging to them; and which they never have, by any act 

 of theirs, consented to renounce." 



Would that be the claim that he speaks of? 



SENATOR ROOT : Very likely. What he says of it is not that that is 

 not what the United States has, but that that right can rest only 

 upon a conventional stipulation. He accepts the view of the right, 

 he denies the origin of the right, and he ascribes to the right, which 

 he describes in these words, an origin which is the basis of his argu- 

 ment. 



JUDGE GRAY : It was conventional. 



SENATOR ROOT : It was conventional. Now, a view not so narrow as 

 these specific utterances, but which does furnish the reason for them ; 

 there is an inherent, essential ineradicable, generic difference between 

 the two kinds of right, the kind of right which was granted in the 

 treaty of 1815, that treaty which was continued by the treaty of 1818, 

 and which, I may observe, was again continued in 1827, and is the 

 treaty under which we live to-day, to travel and reside, and upon 

 which these British negotiators had imposed the express reservation 

 of the right of municipal legislation, and the kind of right which 

 was granted under this treaty with respect to fishery. I have to 

 acknowledge hospitality and courtesy from the people of Newfound- 

 land, because I have been there, and, with them, have shot 

 1257 caribou in their wilderness, and killed salmon in their stream-, 

 accompanied by Newfoundlanders. We were exercising privi- 

 leges in common and with no limitation upon one that was not upon 

 the other. We could fish together, buy and sell, borrow and lend, 

 give and take without restriction; we could have fished from the 

 same boat, could have drawn the seine upon the same strand, we 

 could have employed one or another in each other's service. I was 

 mingling with the people of Newfoundland as an individual be- 

 cause I was going there under the privilege of a general right of in- 

 tercourse which obtains among all civilised nations, declared and 

 expressed in the treaty of 1815 and in this treaty of 1818. 



But how different would have been the situation had I gone as an 

 American fisherman upon an American ship! Then I would have 

 l)een a member of a class set apart by itself, not sharing in any of 

 the common opportunities, or advantages, or privileges, of the people 

 of Newfoundland. If I had fished from the same boat as a New- 



