CHAPTER V 

 FISHERY LAWS 



I. The territorial waters of the Hague Convention (1883) The 

 fisheries police in France and the decrees of 1853 and 1862. 



II. A curious attempt at protecting the nurseries in neutral 

 waters ; the English Parliament and the Moray Firth. 



III. Essential measures : universal interdiction along the 

 coast of all destructive devices, and universal protection of 

 territorial waters. 



IT is easier to make social laws than to discover natural 

 laws. Legislation has therefore commenced by acting 

 on the inspiration of two obvious principles : by for- 

 bidding what is injurious to the common good and 

 recommending what is profitable. 



But the ocean is free to all usus maris publicus, et 

 proprietas nullius, as Justinian wrote of old. Yet it has 

 been found necessary to delimit a belt along the coasts 

 within which the penal sanctions might be applied. The 

 limit of this belt is known as the territorial limit, or the 

 continental limit. The territorial waters of the English 

 coast are exclusively English, and are subject to English 

 jurisdiction ; the French territorial waters are subject to 

 French jurisdiction. They extend from low- water-mark 

 to a line 3 nautical miles from shore, or a nautical 



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