ARGUMENT OF ELIHTJ ROOT. 2145 



My learned friend Mr. Ewart told us that we might substitute for 

 this general distributive use of the word " coasts " on any of the 

 coasts, bays, and so forth that we might substitute on the coasts of 

 Nova Scotia, and the coasts of New Brunswick, and the coasts of 

 Prince Edward Island, and the coasts of Newfoundland ; and that is 

 exactly what Lord Aberdeen does here; and the necessary result is 

 that which you get here in this description by Lord Aberdeen, that 

 the coasts meant in the treaty are the coasts of Nova Scotia, the coasts 

 of New Brunswick, the coasts of Newfoundland, and the bays are the 

 bays of those coasts. 



It is the kind of view which one naturally falls into in dealing with 

 a fisherman's subject, looking at the subject from the point of view 

 of the exercise of the fisherman's avocation, as Lord Aberdeen was 

 here, as the treaty-makers were the fisherman who crawls along the 

 coast, to whom this (indicating on map) is one coast, and that is an- 

 other, looking at it from the interior point of view, and not the point 

 of view of the great merchant ship that comes sailing across the sea 

 from the coast of Europe, and that looks at the western coast of the 

 ocean as a whole. That is the occasion of this distributive form, and 

 I shall presently show that it had an origin in a still more distribu- 

 tive and separative use of the word. 



Now, this question depends, as a matter of reasoning, in the view 

 of the United States, upon this fundamental proposition that the 

 terms of the renunciation clause are to be limited, as a matter of con- 

 struction, to the matter which was in controversy. As to that I do 

 not understand that there is any dispute. The article recites that 



u differences have arisen respecting the liberty, claimed by the United 

 States for the inhabitants thereof, to take, dry, and cure fish on cer- 

 tain coasts, bays, harbours, and creeks." 



Therefore, it is agreed, first, that the inhabitants of the United 

 States shall have the liberty to take, dry, and cure fish within certain 

 Jimits; and next, the United States, for its inhabitants, renounces 

 all the liberty that it has had or claimed upon all coasts not included 

 within the limits. It is a clear cut, compact settlement of the matter 

 in controversy between the parties by one of the parties keeping one 

 part and giving up the other part. We are confined in our construc- 

 tion of the meaning of the words to such meaning as applies to the 

 matter in controversy, and does not carry them outside to other mat- 

 ters. If there are two possible meanings, one which is within arid one 

 which is without, we must reject the one which is without and take 



the meaning that is within the subject-matter. 



1297 The second proposition upon which we are fortunately re- 

 moved from the necessity of long discussion is that the matter 

 in controversy was limited to those waters which were within the 

 territorial jurisdiction, the maritime jurisdiction, the maritime limits, 



