142 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Commonwealth :* "I maintain the proposition that there is 

 no exchisive right of property in the citizens of Massachusetts 

 in the higli seas, or any fish in the high seas, within a distance 

 of three miles of her shore." 



Mr. Justice Bradley, in one of his opinions, writes : — 



" The Constitution of the United States having given to Con- 

 gress the power to regulate commerce, not only with foreign nations, 

 but among the several States, that power is necessarily exclusive 

 whenever the subjects of it are national in their character or admit 

 of only one uniform system or plan of regulation." 



Mr. Choate, commenting on this opinion, says : — 



" If Massachusetts can regulate this part of commerce upon the 

 high seas, it must be only because of a right ot property ; and if 

 she has such right of property in the high seas for three miles from 

 the coast, and in the fish therein, she can go further, and, in virtue 

 of the same right of property, grant an exclusive right of fishing. 

 The mere fact of the common interest of the people of all the 

 forty-four States in this industry [meaning the menhaden fish- 

 eries] demands that it should be subjected and controlled by a 

 uniform system or plan of regulation." 



The English Commission, in their report to which I have 

 referred, said : — 



" Leaving out of consideration the comparatively few cases in 

 which private rights of sea-fishery exist, it may be laid down as a 

 broad principle that, apart from the restrictions prescribed by 

 international law, or by special treaties, the produce of the sea is 

 the property of the people in common, and that methods of fishing 

 are fitting subjects for legislation only so far as such legislation can 

 be shown to be necessary to secure the greatest possible advantage 

 to the whole nation from the sea-fisheries, either by suppressing 

 wasteful and uselessly destructive modes of fishing, or by removing 

 legislative obstacles in the way of improved modes of fishing, or 

 by preserving peace and order among fishermen." 



• This case was decided in favor of Massachusetts. But the U. S. Court said : " We 

 do not consider the question whetlier or not Congress should have the right to control 

 the menhaden liiheries, wliich tlic State of Massachusetts assumes to control, but 

 we mean to say only that as the right of control exists in the State in the absence of 

 the affirmative action of Congress talking such control, the fact that Congress has 

 never assumed sucli control is persuasive evidence that the right to control them still 

 remains with the State." 



