THE INADEQUACY OF THE THREE-MILE LIMIT 731 



Lord Halsbury, the former Lord Chancellor, and by Lord 

 Herschell, the then Lord Chancellor (see p. 592), in which 

 Lord Salisbury said " great care had been taken not to name 

 three miles as the territorial limit." Nor is it in agree- 

 ment with the carefully considered and most explicit reserva- 

 tions made in the Territorial Waters Jurisdiction Act, both in 

 regard to the extent of the territorial waters and the rightful 

 jurisdiction of the Crown beyond three miles from the shore 

 under the law of nations, conferred by Act of Parliament, or 

 by law existing, and the similar reservations in certain other 

 Acts previously referred to. Even more singular is the novel 

 statement as to what constitutes a territorial bay. A six-mile 

 limit of the kind will obviously confer in the great majority of 

 cases no greater extent of sea than the three-mile limit on an 

 open coast, and it is thus opposed to one of the best-recognised 

 principles of international law relating to the subject. The only 

 part of the world where it appears to be in force is in British 

 North America, with reference to subjects of the United States. 

 The history of how it came to be applied at all is told in a 

 previous chapter, in which it is also shown that the British 

 Government as late as 1887 rejected even the ten-mile limit 

 for bays, as involving a surrender of fishing rights, and as being 

 contrary to the law of nations (p. 629), and they have made 

 declarations equally emphatic on other occasions. 1 



But in a subsequent debate Lord Fitzmaurice appears to have 

 qualified his statement, and quoted the observation of Lord 

 Salisbury that where the coast was " folded and doubled," as 



1 Thus, in the " Reply on behalf of Her Britannic Majesty's Government to the 

 Answer of the United States of America," submitted to the International Fisheries 

 Commission at Halifax in 1877, it was said: "It is not understood that the 

 Answer either raises or invites the discussion of any rules or doctrines of inter- 

 national law, save such as bear upon the question of what are to be considered 

 the territorial waters of a maritime State for the purposes of exclusive fishing. 

 The contention of the Answer in relation to these doctrines which requires special 

 attention, is that which asserts that Great Britain and other Powers have tradition- 

 ally recognised a rule, by which foreigners were excluded from fishing in those bays 

 only which are six miles, or less, in width at their mouths. It is distinctly asserted 

 on the part of Her Majesty's Government that this alleged rule is entirely unkiuncn 

 to, and unrecognised by, Her Majesty's Government, and it is submitted that no in- 

 stance of such recognition is to be found in the Answer or the Brief accompanying 

 the same, and that none can be produced." This was approved of by the Earl of 

 Derby, Foreign Secretary (the Karl of Derby to Mr Ford, August 31, 1877 ; 

 the same to the same, Oct. 6, 1877). 



