74 NOKTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



(c.) Unless their appropriateness, necessity, reasonableness, and 

 fairness be determined by the United States and Great Britain by 

 common accord and the LFnited States concurs in their enforcement. 



Question I, thus submitted to the Tribunal, resolves itself into 

 two main contentions: 



1st. Whether the right of regulating reasonably the liberties con- 

 ferred by the treaty of 1818 resides in Great Britain ; 



2nd. And, if such right does so exist, whether such reasonable 

 exercise of the right is permitted to Great Britain without the accord 

 and concurrence of the United States. 



The treaty of 1818 contains no explicit disposition in regard to 

 the right of regulation, reasonable or otherwise; it neither reserves 

 that right in express terms, nor refers to it in any way. It is there- 

 fore incumbent on this Tribunal to answer the two questions above 

 indicated by interpreting the general terms of Article I of the treaty, 

 and more especially the words " the inhabitants of the United States 

 shall have, for ever, in common with the subjects of His Britannic 

 Majesty, the liberty to take fish of every kind." This interpretation 

 must be conformable to the general import of the instrument, the 

 general intention of the parties to it, the subject matter of the con- 

 tract, the expressions actually used and the evidence submitted. 



Now in regard to the preliminary question as to whether the right 

 of reasonable regulation resides in Great Britain : — 



Considering that the right to regulate the liberties conferred by 

 the treaty of 1818 is an attribute of sovereignty, and as such must 

 be held to reside in the territorial sovereign, unless the contrary be 

 provided; and considering that one of the essential elements of 

 sovereignty is that it is to be exercised within territorial limits, and 

 that, failing proof to the contrary, the territory is coterminous with 

 the sovereignty, it follows that the burden of the assertion involved 

 in the contention of the United States (viz., that the right to regu- 

 late does not reside independently in Great Britain, the territorial 

 sovereign) must fall on the United States. And for the purpose of 

 sustaining this burden, the United States have put forward the fol- 

 lowing series of propositions, each one of which must be singly con- 

 sidered. 



It is contended by the United States: 



(1.) That the French right of fishery under the treaty of 1713 

 designated also as a liberty, was never subjected to regulation by 

 Great Britain, and therefore the inference is warranted that the 

 American liberties of fishery are similarly exempted. 



The Tribunal is unable to agree with this contention : 

 (a.) Because although the French right designated in 1713 merely 

 "an allowance" (a term of even less force than that used in 



