2120 NOBTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



knowledge we could of the intention of the parties (which is the aim 

 of all construction) from the contract itseli, together with any cus- 

 tom which might be supposed to form the basis of the contract. But 

 Oppenheim lays down as a rule in international law, and it seems an 

 extremely good rule, that after all, international tribunals, in dealing 

 with such documents, must first consider: How have the parties in- 

 terpreted the contract? Because a great Tribunal like this is free, 



as I have already said, from many of the technical rules that 

 1282 hamper judicial bodies under national laws; and that certainly 



is an equitable and sound rule. No matter what the contract 

 says, under a technical construction if the parties have agreed and 

 themselves stated what it is to be taken to mean, that is to be its 

 meaning.'" 



Both the quotation from Oppenheim and the observations of the 

 Attorney-General seems to be very apposite to the interpretation 

 placed upon this treaty by the parties, to which I have devoted so 

 long a period of explanation and exposition during the past two 

 days. There is a very sound basis for the rule. There is this defect 

 in all human reasoning: that no human reasoner has ever collected, 

 or can ever collect in his premises, all the facts which may go to 

 form the basis of a just logical deduction. It is impossible for us, 

 at a distance of almost a century, to reproduce for ourselves all 

 those conditions and circumstances which the people of the period 

 when the treaty was made and of the generation which followed, 

 felt, knew without finding them stated in documents or expressed in 

 terms. We might, looking at the language of a treaty with our 

 knowledge, interpreting the words in the light of what we know, 

 come to one conclusion; but our knowledge is necessarily imperfect. 

 We cannot completely put ourselves in the position of the earlier 

 time; and the interpretation which was put upon this treaty at the 

 time when it was made, and for many years succeeding, is the pro- 

 duct of a knowledge more complete than ours can possibly be; and 

 the absence of one single word in any document or conversation dur- 

 ing all that period which points to the existence of an idea in the 

 minds of the parties that Great Britain was to say what limitations 

 and modifications there might be, or should be, upon our right, is, in 

 the view of this rule presented by the Attorney-General, of the 

 greatest cogency. 



There is another subject to which I must briefly call the atten- 

 tion of the Tribunal. Other nations have granted rights having the 

 same generic qualities and characteristics as the right which we have 

 here under consideration. Other nations have had their questions 

 regarding them, have discussed them, have reached conclusions, and 

 have fallen into a course of settled practice regarding them. Other 

 publicists have reasoned about them, have examined them, analysed 

 them, considered their nature, the legal effect and rules of construction 

 which are to be applied; and the results of these processes have been 



