2168 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



And, while I have stated as an inference from general knowledge 

 of the condition of the times and the history of Great Britain that 

 there was a reason in British policy for the adoption and the main- 

 tenance of this unvarying course of conduct, I find very powerful 

 support for it in an observation of Lord Lansdowne in this same 

 debate, p. 225 of this same pamphlet of November llth, 1907. 



Lord Lansdowne, whom you will recall as the honoured and highly 

 respected Minister of Foreign Affairs under the last administration 

 of Great Britain, a colleague of our friend Sir Robert Finlay in the 

 Cabinet of which Mr. Balfour was Premier, says : 



" From whatever authority they proceed, I am bound to point out 

 that it is not always very easy to determine where the open sea ends 

 and territorial waters begin; and anyone who has had anything to 

 do with these questions knows that there have been interminable 

 negotiations upon the subject of the right of fishing within bays in 

 different parts of the world, and that if you open the question as 

 between this country and foreign countries in regard to a particular 

 bay in which we are interested, they will desire to have it opened in 

 regard to other bays and enclosed waters in other parts of the world." 



There is the key to the position of Great Britain. That is why ^lu> 

 did not make a general claim. She could not make a general claim 

 without laying it open to all of the countries, all over the world, to 

 make similar claims, and the great policy of the Empire overbore 

 and put aside what might have been the particular interest of this 

 comparatively small part of the British Empire. The greater inter- 

 est controlled. 



One further observation I should make about this debate. The 

 debate arose upon the arrest of certain Norwegian fishermen in the 

 waters of the Moray Firth, a great indentation which runs into the 

 coast of Scotland, very much as the Bay of Fundy runs into the 

 coast of the British possessions in North America. There was a 

 statute which in terms prohibited certain kinds of fishing in the 

 waters of that firth ; and Norway protested against the arrest of her 

 citizens in that water, which Norway claimed to be the free sea. 



Under the old doctrine of the King's Chambers it would have been 

 the territorial water of Great Britain; but the doctrine of the King's 

 Chambers, as it has survived that old period of wide and vague 

 claims, is now a doctrine based upon the circumstances of each case 

 in regard to each area of water, and Moray Firth must depend upon 

 the question whether there were circumstances to be asserted by 

 Great Britain justifying an appropriation by her of the waters of 

 that indentation, and the exercise of sovereignty by her over it. 



Upon this debate the Foreign Office of Great Britain allowed the 

 protest of Norway, and released the Norwegian citizens who had been 

 arrested for violating this statute upon that water; and accepted the 

 situation that this statute, which in terms covered this water, was to 



