QUESTION ONE. 65 



that Great Britain means to contend that her conception of the 

 economic value of the fisheries is above that of the United States, or 

 that she has a superior capacity to conceive of proper and necessary 

 regulations for their preservation, or that she is moved by higher 

 motives of international duty in the desire to secure to the fishermen 

 of both nations a full and equal enjoyment of their fruits. If, there- 

 fore, the two nations have an equal right in the fisheries and an equal 

 interest in their preservation and protection, and an equal interest in 

 the imposition of proper and necessary regulations from every view 

 point set up by Great Britain, and since there is no impediment to the 

 making of joint regulations by the two nations, to be enforced by 

 Great Britain alone or by the two nations conjointly as may be 

 agreed on, the United States submits that every principle of public 

 law entitles it to an equal voice in the making of regulations if any 

 are found to be necessary. The contrary view would imply want of 

 equality in discretion and judgment, or in national sovereignty, which 

 it can not be supposed Great Britain means to assert, and which, 

 certainly, it can not be supposed that the United States would admit. 

 The exclusive right of Great Britain can not be supported on 

 any such indefinite theory as reserved sovereignty. There can be no 

 such a thing as a reserved sovereignty to limit or restrain the exer- 

 cise of a right the grant of which implies a derogation of sovereignty. 

 Any theory of reserved sovereignty in the granting state which per- 

 mitted limitations or restraints would, in fact, amount to a derogation 

 of the sovereignty of the state receiving the grant. The latter holds 

 the right granted, if it be a right to do something within the terri- 

 tories of the granting state, such as to participate in the fisheries, by 

 as good right and title as the granting state had to the whole before 

 making the grant. It is held as a national right and by virtue of the 

 sovereignty under which every other national right is held, and is 

 entitled to all the protection which public law gives to any right or 

 property of a nation held by virture of its sovereignty. These prin- 

 ciples it is believed are incontestable, and they must be broken down 

 and swept aside if the United States is to be deprived of an equal 

 voice with Great Britain in the making of regulations which limit 

 and restrain the enjoyment by the former of the joint common and 

 equal right which the two nations possess jointly in the fisheries. 



