ARGUMENT OF ELIHU ROOT. 2095 



States Government on the present occasion, are fully sensible of 

 the evils arising from any difference of opinion between the two 

 governments in regard to the fishery rights of their respective sub- 

 jects. They have always admitted the incompetence of the colonial 

 or the imperial legislature to limit by subsequent- legislation the 

 advantages secured by treaty to the subjects of another power." 



There you have the full question and answer and specification and 

 reply ; a demand by Mr. Evarts for an explicit avowal as to whether 

 Great Britain claims paramount authority of her legislation over 

 the exercise of the treaty right; a response by Lord Salisbury that 

 Great Britain concedes that " British sovereignty is limited in its 

 scope by the engagements of the treaty, which cannot be modified or 

 affected by municipal legislation"; a call by Lord Salisbury upon 

 Mr. Evarts to specify what recent legislation he considers contravenes 

 the treaty ; a specification by Mr. Evarts of statutes, some within the 

 life of the treaty and some prior to the life of the treaty ; a reply by 

 Lord Salisbury that the effect of the treaty, which conferred a right 

 in common with Newfoundland fishermen, was to impose upon Amer- 

 ican fishermen regulations and limitations of the statutes existing at 

 the time that treaty was made, but that they recognised the incom- 

 petence of Great Britain to limit by subsequent regulation the advan- 

 tages secured by the treaty. 



This answers to the definition finely drawn by the Attorney- 

 General between mere admissions on the part of government officers 

 and the acts of the government itself. This was the formal and the 

 authentic action of the Government of Great Britain denying the 

 claim for compensation on the part of the United States, and doing 

 it in the face of the grave declarations made by Mr. Evarts regarding 

 the course which it would be the duty of the Government of the United 

 States to take if it should find that the claim of Great Britain to 

 paramount authority over the exercise of the American right so far 

 destroyed that right as to make it worthless. 



JUDGE GRAY : The Sunday law had been enacted after 1871 ? 



SENATOR ROOT: After 1871, yes; and it is abandoned by Lord 

 Salisbury. 



If there ever was a case in which the evidence was clear and incon- 

 trovertible of the positive position taken by one government towards 

 another, it appears here in this record; and we are none of us at 

 liberty to ignore it or to make a decision against it. 



[Thereupon, at 4.15 o'clock P. M., the Tribunal adjourned until to- 

 morrow, August 9th, 1910, at 10 o'clock A. M.] 



