592 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



foreign ship, and the person who committed the offence might 

 be arrested, tried, and punished accordingly. The legal advisers 

 of the Government were, however, careful to guard against the 

 limitation of the general rights of the crown in the adjacent 

 seas to the distance to which criminal jurisdiction was declared 

 to extend. In the interpretation clause it is stated : " ' The 

 territorial waters of Her Majesty's dominions,' in reference to the 

 sea, means such part of the sea adjacent to the coast of the 

 United Kingdom, or the coast of some other part of Her 

 Majesty's dominions, as is deemed by international law to be 

 within the territorial sovereignty of Her Majesty : and for the 

 purpose of any offence declared by this Act to be within the 

 jurisdiction of the admiral, any part of the open sea within one 

 marine league of the coast measured from low-water mark shall 

 be deemed to be open sea within the territorial waters of Her 

 Majesty's dominions." The reservation is made explicit in the 

 fifth section, which says that " nothing in this Act contained 

 shall be construed to be in derogation of any rightful jurisdiction 

 of Her Majesty, her heirs or successors, under the law of nations, 

 or to affect or prejudice any jurisdiction conferred by Act of 

 Parliament or now by law existing in relation to foreign ships 

 or in relation to persons on board such ships." 



In the debate that took place in the House of Lords in 1895 

 in connection with the Sea Fisheries Regulation (Scotland) Act, 1 

 by which power was conferred on the Fishery Board for 

 Scotland of regulating trawling, under certain conditions, up 

 to thirteen miles from the coast (see p. 720), it was stated by 

 Lord Halsbury, who had charge of the Territorial Waters 

 Jurisdiction Act in 1878, that "in that Act they took care 

 specially to avoid any measurements. The distance was left 

 at such limit as was necessary for the defence of the Realm ; 

 then the exact limit was given for the particular purpose in 

 view." Equally clear was the statement of the late Lord 

 Salisbury in the same debate, that " Great care had been taken 

 not to name three miles as the territorial limit. The limit 

 depended on the distance to which a cannon-shot could go." 2 



1 58 & 59 Viet., c. 42. 



2 Hansard, xxxiii. 504. The Lord Chancellor (Lord Herschell), who followed, 

 said : " He was far from saying that three miles was to be the limit of territorial 

 waters for all time. Originally the distance was fixed by gunshot, and it was 



