GENERAL ADOPTION OF THE THREE-MILE LIMIT 591 



ally quoted, and not infrequently the two were confused and 

 spoken of as if they were one and the same thing. This was 

 particularly the case with Sir Alexander Cockburn, who 

 referred to various treaties and edicts (see p. 570) in which the 

 range of guns alone was mentioned, as having fixed a three- 

 mile limit for purposes of neutrality. He even gives Bynkers- 

 hoek the credit of having propounded the three-mile theory. 1 

 His conclusion was cautiously expressed as follows : " Possibly, 

 after these precedents and all that has been written on this 

 subject, it may not be too much to say that, independently of 

 treaties, the three-mile belt of sea might at this day be taken 

 as belonging, for these purposes [in connection with fisheries 

 and neutrality], to the local State." 



It was, as we have said, in sequence to the above case of the 

 Fronconia that the important statute, the Territorial Waters 

 Jurisdiction Act, was passed by the British Parliament in 1878. 2 

 This Act is sometimes loosely referred to as having settled the 

 extent of the territorial waters at three miles from the shore. 

 This is far from being the case. In the preamble it is stated 

 that "whereas the rightful jurisdiction of Her Majesty, her 

 heirs and successors, extends and has always extended over the 

 open seas adjacent to the coasts of the United Kingdom and of 

 all other parts of Her Majesty's dominions to such a distance as 

 is necessary for the defence and security of such dominions. 

 And whereas it is expedient that all offences committed on the 

 open sea within a certain distance of the coasts of the United 

 Kingdom and of all other parts of Her Majesty's dominions, by 

 whomsoever committed, should be dealt with according to law," 

 it was enacted that an offence committed by a person, whether 

 or not a British subject, within the territorial waters of Her 

 Majesty's dominions was an offence within the jurisdiction of 

 the admiral, although committed on board, or by means of, a 



1 E.g., p. 204: "There are several treaties by which nations have engaged, in 

 the event of either of them being at war with a third, to treat the sea within three 

 miles of each other's coasts as neutral territory," the treaties being those referred 

 to on p. 572. " After the three-mile theory had been propounded by Bynkershoek," 

 p. 177. Mr Justice Amphlett went further, and attributed a similar doctrine to 

 Grotius : "All the earlier writers, including Grotius, the vigorous advocate of the 

 free navigation of the high seas, and many of the later writers, maintained -that 

 within the zone of three miles the state had, without qualification," &c., p. 122. 



2 41 & 42 Viet., c. 73. 



