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CHAPTER IV. 



THE MODERN PRACTICE OF STATES AND THE OPINIONS 

 OF RECENT PUBLICISTS. 



WE may now pass to the consideration of the modern practice 

 of states with respect to the extent of territorial sea which is 

 claimed or allowed by them, and of the opinions of the later 

 writers on the law of nations as to the extent that may be 

 rightfully conceded or appropriated. It will be found that 

 there is apparently a very considerable discrepancy between 

 the one and the other. For while the opinions of publicists 

 have on the whole become more decided and definite as to 

 Bynkershoek's principle being the true principle for the 

 delimitation of territorial waters, and the inadequacy of the 

 three-mile limit has been formally declared, the general usage 

 of states is indicated by the common adoption of the latter 

 limit for several purposes. As elsewhere stated, this general 

 use of the one marine league is in large measure owing to the 

 example, or the pressure, of Great Britain and the United 

 States of America, and perhaps chiefly, if indirectly, to the 

 influence of the latter. Although the United States more than 



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any other Power has varied her principles and claims as to the 

 extent of territorial waters, according to her policy at the time 

 now claiming the vague and wandering " boundary " of the 

 Gulf Stream or the whole of Behring Sea, and now the liberty 

 to fish right up to the shores of the Falkland Islands, she has 

 been consistent in this, that she has steadily and constantly 

 pressed for the narrowest limit she could get in favour of her 

 own fishermen on the coasts of the British North American 

 Colonies. The unhappy heritage of the British Foreign Office 

 that came from the abnegation of territorial dominion over 



