2238 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



ply the coastal belt. They do not mean that you arc to he at liherty 

 to enter bays. Now this new evidence produced by the United States 

 puts that beyond a doubt, because here we have them making a pro- 

 posal with regard to belligerents, and they say, first, let each nation 

 take all the chambers between headlands, and then when it has got all 

 the chambers between headlands, let it in addition to that take a 

 maritime jurisdiction of 5 miles outside these chambers, just as in 

 the fishery article Great Britain was to have its bays and a maritime 

 jurisdiction of 3 miles from their entrance. 



Now. Mr. Root went on to say we refused this belligerency pro- 

 posal, and he said we had refused, therefore, to treat bays as terri- 

 torial. Well, it is not .-trictly accurate to say that we refused it. 

 All that can be said is that the proposition did not appear in our 

 counter-projet, and why not? The reason is obvious. This pro- 

 posal gave far more than bays to each country, far more. It gave far 

 too much. Take, for instance, a line drawn from headland to head- 

 land along the coast. Why. you could enclose the whole coast of the 

 United States within three or four of such lines. It really meant 

 that not merely every bay, but every curvature of the coast was to be 

 treated as territorial: every curvature, every place that no map and 

 no geography would dream of calling a bay. was, according to this 

 proposal, to be put in the same category as bays. Now. Great Brit- 

 ain could not accept this proposal, and did not repeat it in her 

 counter-projet. What she had been saying at this time, in letter 

 after letter, was " You shall not enter our bays ; " but she had never 

 gone so far as to say, " We are going to acknowledge it as an inter- 

 national or quasi-international right, that not only bays but every 

 kind of curvature or indentation in a coast shall be treated as terri- 

 torial ; " that undoubtedly would have limited very severely indeed 

 the operation of the British fleet. The is why we did not ac- 

 1354 cept it, but to suggest that we did not accept it because we 

 would not admit hay- to be territorial is a suggestion for which 

 there is no kind of foundation at all none. 



Now. 1 think one may see clearly how the words "maritime juris- 

 diction " were being used, and what was in the minds of the writers 

 of these letters. They all said. " We mean to have our hays, we will 

 not let you into them, but when you go beyond bays, and you seek a 

 tremendous extension of this kind, and ask our acceptance of a pro- 

 posal of this kind, we will not do that. Take one line, for instance. 

 from the south Cape of Florida to the Mississippi what an immense 

 area of coast you would lock up there." 



Just one further observation, still on the same piece of evidence. 

 It is a very remarkable proposition that Mr. Root put forward in 

 connection with this evidence. He said " We were wanting to terri- 



