OPINIONS OF RECENT PUBLICISTS 687 



the range of cannon, and the exigencies of international com- 

 merce, the bordering state, he says, may limit this distance 

 to a number of miles fixed by law ; and he himself advocates 

 a limit of ten miles, instead of three miles, as being more 



o 



in conformity with the actual range of guns, and better 

 fitted to protect the interests of the coast population who 

 subsist by sea fisheries. 1 



The latest English writer of authority on international law, 

 Mr W. E. Hall, who has given a lucid and philosophical 

 account of the territorial sea, is also of opinion that the 

 three-mile limit is inadequate. The boundary, he says, is 

 generally fixed at three miles, but this distance was defined 

 by the supposed range of guns of position, and the effect 

 of the recent increase in the power of artillery has not yet 

 been taken into consideration, either as supplying a new 

 measure of the space over which control may be efficiently 

 exercised, or as enlarging that within which acts of violence 

 may be dangerous to persons and property on shore. "It 

 may be doubted," he continues, " in view of the very diverse 

 opinions which have been held until lately as to the extent 

 to which marginal seas may be appropriated, of the lateness 

 of the time at which much more extensive claims have been 

 fully abandoned, and of the absence of cases in which the 

 breadth of the territorial waters has come into international 

 questions, whether the three-mile limit has ever been un- 

 equivocally settled ; but in any case, as it has been de- 

 termined, if determined at all, upon an assumption which 

 has ceased to hold good, it would be pedantry to adhere to 

 the rule in its present form; and perhaps it may be said 

 without impropriety that a state has the right to extend its 

 territorial waters from time to time at its will with the 

 increased range of guns; though it would undoubtedly be 

 more satisfactory that an arrangement upon the subject 

 should be come to by common agreement." In a later edition 

 of his work, which appeared after the results of the inter- 

 national conferences of publicists, to be presently referred to, 

 were known, he says that it is felt and growingly felt, not 

 only that the width of three miles is insufficient for the 

 safety of the territory, but that it is desirable for a state to 



1 Jfcvue generate de Droit International Public, No. 1. 



