6 ARGUMENT OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



confer exemption from the jurisdiction of the State in which those 

 acts are to be done. 



A common instance is a grant of a liberty to enter foreign terri- 

 tory and to trade there. Grants such as this do not imply exemption 

 from the local law, nor freedom to act as such person pleases. They 

 are made on the terms that they must be exercised subject to the 

 local laws which from time to time regulate trade in that territory. 



3. Other treaties between Great Britain and the United 



7 States have invariably been construed on this principle. The 

 treaties of 1783 and 1794 alike contain clauses giving rights 



to the subjects of one of the parties to go into the territory of the 

 other. But it has never been suggested that such treaty permission 

 in any way affected the sovereign power of each nation to enact such 

 laws as it thought proper. Persons exercising these rights were sub- 

 ject to the laws in force for the time being. (British Case, App., 

 pp. 13, 16.) 



4. The treaties of 1854 and 1871, between Great Britain and the 

 United States, furnish further examples of similar treaty conces- 

 sions, and it is probable that the international relations of every 

 civilised nation in the world are affected by treaties of the same char- 

 acter. If it were to be held by the Tribunal that grants of this char- 

 acter carried with them immunity from local legislation, difficulties 

 and disputes would at once arise in every part of the world. (British 

 Case, App., pp. 36, 37.) 



5. The particular language of the treaty of 1818 furnishes special 

 reason for applying to it the principles of interpretation above re- 

 ferred to. For the provision says expressly that the liberties granted 

 to American fishermen are to be enjoyed "in common" with British 

 subjects. These words appear to be well adapted to the purpose 

 for which they were no doubt used, namely, to indicate that the 

 British and American fishermen were to take fish on a footing of 

 equality. That purpose, however, would be unattained if the effect 

 of the treaty was that British fishermen were required to observe 

 the regulations necessary and appropriate for the protection and 

 preservation of the fisheries, and that American fishermen could do 

 as they pleased unless the United States Government concurred in 

 framing regulations. 



In the United States Case (p. 64) it is argued that the words " in 

 common " cannot be supposed to have been inserted 



" for any purpose other than to negative the presumption, which 

 otherwise might have arisen, that the American fishermen in the ex- 

 excise of the fishing liberties reserved to them by the treaty were at 

 liberty to take precedence over the British fishermen in those waters 

 or crowd out the British fishermen from the fishing grounds." 



