732 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



where bays exist, it was an unsettled question in international 

 law how far territorial waters extend in such cases. 1 



Rather a different view was taken by the Lord Chancellor, 

 a few weeks later, in the course of another debate about the 

 Moray Firth. Lord Loreburn confined himself to saying that 

 the obvious contention of other nations, and one very difficult 

 to encounter, if we tried to make byelaws under our own law 

 in regard to waters within a line from headland to headland 

 eighty-five miles apart, would be that we might be trying to 

 legislate for the high seas. 2 And in a debate in July 1908, the 

 Secretary for Foreign Affairs (Sir Edward Grey) put the matter 

 in an exceedingly lucid manner. Parliament had recognised 

 the contention, he said, that there ought to be special regulations, 

 especially in regard to the Moray Firth, going far beyond the 

 three-mile limit ; and, like other members of the Government, 

 he condemned the action of British subjects who, knowing 

 perfectly well the law, made use of a foreign flag to evade 

 the regulations of the Moray Firth, which it was obviously the 

 desire of Parliament should be enforced. But when they came 

 to the question of enforcing the law on foreign subjects, they 

 were placed in a very difficult position. The national policy of 

 this country hitherto " had been to uphold the three-mile limit, 

 but to protest against and to resist by every means in em- 

 power the pretension of any foreign country to enforce its own 

 jurisdiction on the sea beyond the three-mile limit." We had 

 contended before international tribunals, as in the Behringf Sea 



o 



Arbitration, that the three-mile limit is the only one we can 

 recognise as the limit of foreign jurisdiction over British 

 vessels ; and suppose we attempted to enforce a doctrine going 

 far beyond the three-mile limit on foreign ships, how could we 



1 llth Nov. 1908. Hansard, vol. 196, p. 236. Very important declarations as 

 to the territorial character of bays will be found in the decision of the Permanent 

 Court of Arbitration at The Hague, on the North Atlantic Fisheries (7th Septem- 

 ber 1910, Award No. V.), received as these sheets are passing through the press. 

 The application of the three-mile limit to bays was rejected, the following rule 

 being formulated : " In case of bays the three marine miles are to be measured 

 from a straight line drawn across the body of water at the place where it ceases to 

 hare the configuration and characteristics of a bay. At all other places the three 

 marine miles are to be measured following the sinuosities of the coast." In its 

 practical application to British North America, the Tribunal recommended a ten- 

 mile limit generally, except for certain specified bays (including Chaleurs, Miramichi, 

 Egtnont) where special lines, enclosing much larger areas, are proposed. 



- Hansard, vol. 170, p. 1383. The miles referred to are English statute miles. 



