2228 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



1347 virtue of that fact, excluded from the fishing privileges, or 

 whether a vessel which is there to fish is thereby excluded from 

 <he trading privileges, whatever they are, that have been accorded 

 to trad ing- vessels generally. What the extent of the trading may 

 be is not involved at all, and it raises no question whatever as to 

 what the provisions against trade, the provisions against the export 

 of anything, or against the dealing in anything, or trading in any- 

 thing, of the Newfoundland Government may be, or what the effect 

 of them may be. Nor, may I say here, is it really a question of the 

 purchase of bait. The real question of the purchase of bait, the 

 great, the substantial one, arises when American vessels bound for 

 the banks wish to buy bait in Newfoundland for the purpose of 

 taking it down to the banks and using it there. The Tribunal 

 will perceive that those vessels are not exercising the treaty right 

 at all. They do not come under this question. This question is 

 not framed to cover them in any way whatever. Perhaps if the 

 United States had been exercised about this, and had been getting 

 up questions, if the origin had come from us, we would have been 

 concerned about that, which is really a very serious question 

 that is the question as to whether we can get bait for use on the 

 banks. But this question does not touch it. The question is limited 

 strictly to the vessels that go there for the purpose of exercising the 

 liberty under Article 1 of the treaty : 



"Are the inhabitants of the United States whose vessels resort to 

 the treaty coasts for the purpose of exercising the liberties referred 

 to in Article One of the Treaty of 1818 entitled to have for those 

 vessels .... the commercial privileges," &c. 



That does not touch at all that great bait procurement question in 

 which we are so vitally interested. 



JUDGE GRAY: The question would have been, of course, easy to 

 answer if it had been : 



"Are the inhabitants of the United States resorting to these coasts 

 for the purpose of exercising their treaty rights as fishing ves-cN dis- 

 entitled thereby to exercise the privileges generally accorded to trad- 

 ing vessels if they are properly registered ? " 



But this is put the other way. 



SENATOR ROOT: I know; but if you answer that they are not on- 

 titled, you say that they are disentitled ; you must ; that is, that must 

 be the effect of your answer, because the postulate of the question is 

 that commercial privileges are accorded to the United States trad- 

 ing-vessels generally. The Tribunal, of course, is not at liberty to 

 say they are not; and the question is entirely irrespective of what they 

 are. The question also assumes that the United States has authorised 

 or may authorise particular vessels to exercise the privileges of trad- 

 ing-vessels; that is to say, that the United States makes particular 



