DTSSENTTTSra OFTNTON OF DR. DRAGO ON QTJESTION FIVE. 109 



straight line drawn across the bay, creek or harbour, in the part 

 nearest the entrance at the first point where the width does not exceed 

 ten marine miles," which is recognising the exceptional bays as afore- 

 said and laying the rule for the general and common bays. 



It has been suggested that the treaty of 1818 ought not to be studied 

 as liercabove in the light of any treaties of a later date, but rather 

 be referred to such British international conventions as preceded it 

 and clearly illustrate, according to this view, what were, at the time, 

 the principles maintained by Great Britain as to their sovereignty 

 over the sea and over the coast and the adjacent territorial waters. 

 In this connection the treaties of 1686 and 1713 with France and of 

 1763 with France and Spain have been recited and offered as ex- 

 amples also of exclusion of nations by agreement from fishery rights 

 on the high seas. I cannot partake of such a view. The treaties of 

 1686, 1713, and 1763 can hardly be understood with respect to this, 

 otherwise than as examples of the wild, obsolete claims over the com- 

 mon ocean which all nations have of old abandoned with the progress 

 of an enlightened civilisation. And if certain nations accepted long 

 ago to be excluded by convention from fishing on what is to-day 

 considered a common sea, it is precisely because it was then under- 

 stood that such tracts of water, now free and open to all, were the 

 exclusive property of a particular Power, who, being the owners, 

 admitted or excluded others from their use. The treaty of 1818 is 

 in the meantime one of the few which mark an era in the diplomacy 

 of the world. As a matter of fact it is the very first which commuted 

 the rule of the cannon-shot into the three marine miles of coastal 

 jurisdiction. And it really would appear unjustified to explain such 

 an historic document by referring it to international agreements of a 

 hundred and two hundred years before when the doctrine of Sel- 

 den's Mare Claiisum was at its height, and when the coastal waters 

 were fixed at such distances as sixty miles, or a hundred miles, or 

 two days' journey from the shore and the like. It seems very ap- 

 propriate, on the contrary, to explain the meaning of the treaty of 

 1818 by comparing it with those which immediately followed and 

 established the same limit of coastal jurisdiction. As a gen- 

 132 eral rule a treaty of a former date may be very safely con- 

 strued by referring it to the provisions of like treaties made 

 by the same nation on the same matter at a later time. Much more 

 so when, as occurs in the present case, the later conventions, with 

 no exception, starting from the same premise of the three miles 

 coastal jurisdiction arrive always to an uniform policy and line of 

 action in what refers to bays. As a matter of fact, all authorities 

 approach and connect the modern fishery treaties of Great Britain, 

 and refer them to the treatj^ of 1818. The second edition of Kliiber, 

 for instance, quotes in the same sentence the treaties of October 20th, 

 92909°— S. Doc. 870, 61-3, vol 1 8 



