ARGUMENT OF ELIHU ROOT. 2197 







That it is not a prohibition against Newfoundlanders. It is a 



prohibition against all British subjects. 



1328 JUDGE GRAY: Then Question 2 would seem to have been 

 framed with reference to the provisions of sections 5 and G 

 specially ? 



SENATOR ROOT: No; it was framed for the purpose of meeting a 

 fundamental question, the decision of which would be beneficial in 

 dealing with all these various provisions. Article 6, you see, relates 

 to a general prohibition against British fisheries. 



JUDGE GRAY: But not article 5? 



SENATOR ROOT: Article 5 relates to a general prohibition against 

 aliens; that is, aliens to Newfoundland, aliens from the Newfound- 

 land point of view. That would take in all Germans, Dutch, French, 

 Portuguese, Italians everybody in the world except Americans and 

 British subjects; and the provision of article 6 covers British sub- 

 jects; and the provision to which I referred before, relating solely 

 to the waters of Newfoundland, to shipment in the waters of New- 

 foundland, covers all the world everybody. 



The only way in which Newfoundlanders are involved in these, 

 apart from that specific provision against leaving the country for 

 i he purpose, is by being included in the general category "British 

 subjects." 



In dealing with all these various provisions, and in dealing with 

 any number of future provisions which the ingenuity of Newfound- 

 land legislation might devise, and which it would be impossible to 

 forecast, it was manifest, as a preliminary to an intelligent discus- 

 sion, that we must ascertain whether, quite independently of all these 

 laws, under the treaty the United States vessel owner was at liberty 

 to employ anybody who was not an inhabitant of the United States; 

 because if he is not at liberty to employ anybody who is not an 

 inhabitant of the United States, then we cannot object to any of these 

 things. We cannot discuss them. That lies at the threshold of the 

 discussion of any of these statutes. We cannot call Great Britain to 

 account for making a statute prohibiting British subjects from going 

 into our crews, or fishing from our ships unless the treaty right 

 includes employing non-inhabitants. We cannot call her to account 

 for prohibiting Germans and French and Dutch from fishing from 

 our ships unless, under the treaty, we can employ non-inhabitants. 

 If, under the treaty, we cannot employ a non-inhabitant, we are cut 

 off from discussing any of these questions. And therefore we have 

 put here this preliminary question, asking you to decide it for us, 

 and all these other questions we shall have to take care of. and there 

 will be no serious difficulty about taking care of them, when we come 

 to consider them with Great Britain in the light of whatever your 

 award may be upon the question that is now asked here. And if 



