ABGUMENT OF ELIHU BOOT. 2237 



connection, and I think it is very important in this connection, to the 

 letter with which Mr. Root dealt from Lords Holland and Auckland. 



Now let me look at that letter with reference to this article on p. 

 61, British Case Appendix. 



The second paragraph is the one Mr. Root read : 



" The distance of a cannon-shot from the shore is, as far as we 

 have been able to ascertain, the general limit of maritime jurisdiction, 

 and that distance is for the sake of convenience practically construed 

 into 3 miles or a league. All independent nations possess such 

 jurisdiction," 



and particular circumstances justify an extension. 



It is worth while just to compare the two paragraphs, and com- 

 pare them with this new piece of evidence. 



Mr. Root read that, and he took the words " maritime jurisdiction " 

 as being comprehensive. He said " maritime jurisdiction " means 3 

 miles, nothing else. It means 3 miles from the shore, and therefore 

 he inferred it meant 3 miles from the shore on a sinuosity line 

 going into the bays, and he founded on that the argument that bays 

 were not to be treated as a whole; that the maritime jurisdiction of 3 

 miles from the shore meant you could go into the bays, and as long as 

 you kept 3 miles away from the shore of a bay you were outside of 

 the maritime jurisdiction. Now, that clearly was not the intention,* 

 as appears not only from the new evidence produced by Mr. Root, 

 but from this very letter ; because lower down comes this important 

 paragraph : 



" The space between headlands is more generally laid down, and 

 admitted by Grotius himself, as subject to the exclusive jurisdiction 

 of the power to whom the land belongs. But neither in theory nor in 

 practice do we find the distance between the headlands to which such 

 a rule must exclusively apply accurately defined. James 1st by his 

 royal proclamation dated 1st of March 1604, prohibiting hostilities 

 between belligerent nations within his jurisdiction, stated headlands 

 more than 90 miles distant one from another as forming bays neces- 

 sarily dependent on and belonging to the adjoining territory but it 

 is remarkable that the Spaniards who were one of the objects of this 

 prohibition, considered the order as a relaxation not as an extension 

 of his lawful jurisdiction over the seas." 



Now here in this letter, and in the belligerency proposal, what do 

 we find? The words "maritime jurisdiction" are used in reference 

 to this 3-mile or 5-mile or 10-mile or 14-mile belt of water, what I 

 may call the coastal belt, but the bays, which might be far wider than 

 that distance, which Lords Holland and Auckland say might be 90 

 miles between headlands bays were all included in the territory be- 

 fore you came to deal with the coastal belt at all. When Lords 

 Holland and Auckland speak of maritime jurisdiction they mean sim- 



