84 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



will concerning the subject-matter of the treaty, and limiting the 

 exercise of sovereignty of the States bound by a treaty with respect 

 to that subject-matter of such acts as are consistent with the treaty ; 



{d.) Because on a true construction of the treaty the question does 

 not arise whether the United States agreed that Great Britain should 

 retain the right to legislate with regard to the fisheries in her own 

 territory; but whether the treaty contains an abdication by Great 

 Britain of the right which Great Britain, as the sovereign Power, 

 undoubtedly possessed when the treaty was made, to regulate those 

 fisheries ; 



{e.) Because the right to make reasonable regulations, not incon- 

 sistent with the obligations of the treaty, which is all that is claimed 

 by Great Britain, for a fishery which both Parties admit requires 

 regulation for its preservation, is not a restriction of or an invasion 

 of the liberty granted to the inhabitants of the United States. This 

 grant does not contain words to justify the assumption that the 

 sovereignty of Great Britain upon its own territory was in any way 

 affected; nor can words be found in the treaty transferring any part 

 of that sovereignty to the United States. Great Britain assumed 

 onlj^ duties with regard to the exercise of its sovereignty. The 

 sovereignty of Great Britain over the coastal waters and territory 

 of Newfoundland remains after the treaty as unimpaired as it was 

 before. But from the treaty results an obligatory relation whereby 

 the right of Great Britain to exercise its right of sovereignty by 

 making regulations is limited to such regulations as are made in 



good faith, and are not in violation of the treaty; 

 116 (/.) Finally, to hold that the United States, the grantee 



of the fishing right, has a voice in the preparation of fishery 

 legislation involves the recognition of a right in that country to 

 participate in the internal legislation of Great Britain and her 

 colonies, and to that extent would reduce these countries to a state 

 of dependence. 



While therefore unable to concede the claim of the United States 

 as based on the treaty, this Tribunal considers that such claim has 

 been and is to some extent, conceded in the relations now existing 

 between the two Parties. WHiatever may have been the situation 

 under the treaty of 1818 standing alone, the exercise of the right 

 of regulation inherent in Great Britain has been, and is, limited 

 by the repeated recognition of the obligations already referred to, 

 by the limitations and liabilities accepted in the special agreement, 

 by the unequivocal position assumed by Great Britain in the pres- 

 entation of its case before this Tribunal, and by the consequent 

 view of this Tribunal that it would be consistent with all the cir- 

 cumstances, as revealed by this record, as to the duty of Great 

 Britain, that she should submit the reasonableness of any future 



