QUESTION TWO. 91 



it is submitted, is narrow in the extreme and is inconsistent with the 

 intention of the treaty. 



The words in question clearly were not intended as a limitation. 

 They were words of grant and were intended to describe the grantee. 

 They are affirmative words, not words of negation or limitation. If 

 a limitation follows from their use it could only be because the 

 nature of the right granted and the character in which the grantee 

 took the right imperatively require such limitation, but, as has been 

 shown, the nature of the right and the character in which it was 

 taken not only do not require any such limitation but conclusively 

 negative it. 



3. If the narrow construction contended for by Great Britain be 

 the correct one, then it follows that inhabitants of the United States 

 who wish to take fish in the waters of the treaty coast must them- 

 selves take the fish out of the water, and have no right to employ 

 non-inhabitants to do that work for them. What policy could Great 

 Britain have had in 1818 requiring the imposition of such a limita- 

 tion? What policy, it may be asked, dealing with the subject from 

 a broader view, could Great Britain have had in 1818 to introduce 

 any limitation concerning the crews of fishing vessels ? As a matter 

 of fact there would have been no advantage to Great Britain at 

 that time, from any point of view, to stipulate against the employ- 

 ment of foreigners in American fishing crews. 



4. If the fish are taken for the benefit of inhabitants of the 

 United States, by employees who are not such inhabitants, it is a 

 taking by inhabitants of the United States in the sense of the words 

 used, considered either in their ordinary significance or in their legal 

 significance of the law, in as much as an act performed by an agent 

 is held to be that of the principal. What Great Britain was con- 

 cerned about was to guard her fisheries against use by any nation 

 other than the United States, and this is the full extent to which 

 the use of the words " inhabitants of the United States " in connec- 

 tion with the grant of the fishery right may be considered as a 

 limitation. The purpose of Great Britain was to confer on the 

 United States for the benefit of its inhabitants the right of fishery 

 to be enjoyed by such inhabitants, but by them alone, in any proper 



92909 S. Doc. 870, 61-3, vol 8 7 



