2210 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



Now, what is the basis of obligation upon which anywhere ever 

 a country requires an alien coming with his ship into the territory of 

 the country to pay money under the name of light dues or harbour 

 dues? Why, it can be only that the requirement is a condition upon 

 the exercise of the privilege. . 



SIR CHARLES FITZPATRICK : Not exclusively ; the result of a creation 

 of a convenience, for instance? 



SENATOR ROOT: But that is involved. I mean to include that 



SIR CHARLES FITZPATRICK : Yes. 



SENATOR ROOT: That is in the privilege. The obligation arises 

 from the fact that the ship has come there to enjoy the privilege. 

 It arises from the voluntary act of the ship coming to enjoy the 

 privilege. But when a ship comes into the waters of a country other 

 than its own to exercise a liberty that generations ago was granted 

 to its country, and paid for it by its country, the other country 

 1336 cannot exact a second time a payment for the enjoyment of 

 the privilege. That ship is not beholden to the country into 

 whose waters it goes for the enjoyment of any of the privileges there. 

 It takes the right to enjoy the privilege there from its own country 

 under the right that its country long before acquired, and paid for, 

 in the consideration of the treaty which granted it. And you can- 

 not predicate any obligation upon that ship under those circum- 

 stances. 



As Mr. Lansing suggested the other day, when we were speaking 

 of this subject, it is as if one man were to grant to another a right 

 of way over his land, and then were to put up a toll-gate and charge 

 him toll for passing over the way; and do it upon the excuse or 

 for the alleged reason that he had improved the road. It is a privi- 

 lege of the man who has the right to pass over the way to say 

 whether the way shall be improved at his expense or not, and a new 

 charge for the privilege of using the way already granted cannot be 

 imposed upon him without his consent. 



Now, all these statutes cited by Great Britain are merely statutes 

 which fix, determine, what the obligation of vessels coining in to ex- 

 ercise the privilege shall be. They determine the exaction that shall 

 be made. They are merely the merchant fixing the price of the 

 goods on his shelves which shall be charged to the customers that 

 come in. They have no relation at all to determining whether ships 

 that are not subject to any obligation shall be subjected to it. They 

 have no bearing at all upon the question whether a vessel coming in 

 for the exercise of a right already granted to its country, shall be re- 

 quired to pay again for the exercise of the right. They tell what the 

 vessel shall pay if it is bound to pay. They regulate the exactions, 

 but that is all that there is to them. Of course they are couched in 

 general terms because the legislatures of these States and colonies in 



