36 THE ARGUMENT OP THE UNITED STATES. 



ermen are not subject to the sovereign power of His Majesty and 

 these words show that American fishermen are to have the same lib- 

 erty as British fishermen, but no more. If they were to have the 

 liberty free from the control of the sovereign power, the liberty to 

 fish at any time or at any season, in any place, and with any kind of 

 a net or other instrument, then it is evident that they would not have 

 a common liberty, but a liberty much greater than that enjoyed by 

 British . fishermen." 



Again : 



It was merely permission to fish, in common with British fisher- 

 men, and was necessarily subject to the right of regulation by the 

 Government of the country, inasmuch as, in the absence of such regu- 

 lation, the subject-matter of the grant might itself be destroyed. 6 



The United States submits that the liberty to fish carried by the 

 treaty of 1818, was an unlimited liberty, and that the office of the 

 words, " in common with subjects of his Britannic Majesty," was not 

 to limit the American right to such liberties as Great Britain then 

 allowed to British subjects, or might thereafter allow, in the matter 

 of fishing, but to evidence that the liberty was one held equally by the 

 fishermen of the two countries and to be enjoyed by neither to the ex- 

 clusion of the other. The words in common have no such meaning 

 as that attributed to them by Great Britain, but have the precise 

 meaning attached to them by the United States. Moreover, the his- 

 tory of the transaction, as well as the construction mutually accepted 

 for many years, shows conclusively that the words were understood 

 and used in the sense claimed by the United States. 



This does not mean that American fishermen would have a greater 

 liberty than that enjoyed by Brish fishermen. If any such result 

 shall be brought about it will be because Great Britain, refusing to 

 act in concert with the United States in regulations necessary for 

 the preservation of the fisheries, and for the fair exercise of the fishing 

 right by the fishermen of the two countries, insists on making such 

 regulations alone and thereby binds only her own nationals. Nor 

 does it follow that the subject-matter of the grant might be destroyed 

 for want of regulations for its preservation if any should prove to 

 be necessary. 



As stated by Mr. Root in his discussion on this subject in the con- 

 troversy of 1906 : 



"This Government is far from desiring that the Newfoundland 

 fisheries shall go unregulated. It is willing and ready now, as it has 

 always been, to join with the Government of Great Britain in agree- 



British Case, 46. 6 British Case, 47. 



