2194 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



1326 FORTIETH DAY: FRIDAY, AUGUST 12, 1910. 



The Tribunal met at 10 o'clock A. M. 



THE PRESIDENT: Will you kindly continue, Mr. Senator Root? 



SENATOR ROOT : As to Question Two : 



"Have the inhabitants of the United States, while exercising the 

 liberties referred to in said Article, the right to employ as members 

 of the fishing crews of their vessels persons not inhabitants of the 

 United States?" 



As to the scope of the question : In the view of the United States, 

 if the Tribunal said that the inhabitants exercising the liberties re- 

 ferred to have or have not a right to employ any persons who are not 

 inhabitants of the United States, the question is answered; and to 

 undertake to say that they have or have not a right to employ all 

 persons in the world who are not inhabitants of the United States 

 would be wholly unnecessary to a resolution of the question, and 

 wholly impossible for any Tribunal to undertake. 



The question points directly and solely to the competency of the 

 inhabitants of the United States who exercise the liberty to employ. 

 It is a question of the employer's right, and it points to inhabitancy 

 or non- inhabitancy of the employe as the sole test of the employer's 

 right to make the contract of employment, nothing else. Have I. an 

 inhabitant of the United States, purposing to exercise the treaty 

 right, the right to make a contract of employment with a person who 

 is not an inhabitant of the United States ? That is the question. 



Upon the other side, a multitude of quite different questions might 

 arise, regarding the right of this, that, or the other, or any number 

 of persons to accept employment. Those questions must be resolved 

 not by treaty between Great Britain and the United States, but by 

 those laws which govern the persons who are contemplating accept- 

 ance of the employment. If a Frenchman is offered employment by 

 an inhabitant of the United States for the purpose of this industry, 

 he must regulate his conduct by the laws of his country. If a Brit- 

 ish subject is offered employment, he must regulate his conduct by 

 the laws of his country, and so through the whole range of non-in- 

 habitants. The two questions are quite distinct. The question of 

 what right we, of the United States, have under this treaty to employ 

 non-inhabitants, and the infinite number of possible questions which 

 there may be as to the right of other people of the earth under their 

 laws to accept such an employment. 



There is a rather leading case in the United States, which Mr. 

 Justice Gray will recall, the Terre Haute Railroad case, which illus- 

 trates this. Two railroad companies had made a contract of lease. 

 The question as to the validity of the lease went up to the Supreme 

 Court of the United States, and the Supreme Court held that one of 



