42 ABGUMENT OF GEEAT BRITAIN. 



" 5. When a vessel has produced papers showing that she is an 



American vessel, the officials of Newfoundland have no concern with 



the character or extent of the privileges accorded to such a 



48 vessel by the Government of the United States. No question 

 as between a registry and licence is a proper subject for their 



consideration. They are not charged with enforcing any laws or 

 regulations of the United States. As to them, if the vessel is Amer- 

 ican she has the Treaty right, and they are not at liberty to deny it. 



"6. If any such matter were a proper subject for the consideration 

 of the officials of Newfoundland, the statement of this Department 

 that vessels bearing an American Registry are entitled to exercise the 

 Treaty right should be taken by such officials as conclusive." 



Replying to these assertions, Sir Edward Grey, in a memorandum 

 sent to Mr. Whitelaw Reid (2nd February, 1906), said, as to the 

 first of them (British Case, App., p. 494) : 



" The privilege of fishing conceded by Article 1 of the Convention 

 of 1818 is conceded, not to American vessels, but to inhabitants of the 

 United States and to American fishermen. 



"His Majesty's Government are unable to agree to this or any of 

 the subsequent propositions if they are meant to assert any right of 

 American vessels to prosecute the fishery under the Convention of 

 1818 except when the fishery is carried on by inhabitants of the 

 United States. The Convention confers no rights on American 

 vessels as such. It enures for the benefit only of inhabitants of the 

 United States." 



Mr. Root replied in a letter to Mr. Whitelaw Reid (30th June, 

 1906) (British Case, App., p. 498) : 



"We may agree that ships, strictly speaking, can have no rights 

 or duties, and that whenever the Memorandum, or the letter upon 

 which it comments, speaks of a ship's rights and duties, it but uses a 

 convenient and customary form of describing the owner's or master's 

 right and duties in respect of the ship. As this is conceded to be 

 essentially 'a ship fishing,' and as neither in 1818 nor since could 

 there be an American ship not owned and officered by Americans, it 

 is probably quite unimportant which form of expression is used. 



"I find in the Memorandum no substantial dissent from the first 

 proposition of my note to Sir Mortimer Durand of the 19th October, 

 1905, that any American vessel is entitled to go into the waters of the 

 Treaty coast and take fish of any kind, and that she derives this right 

 from the Treaty and not from any authority proceeding from the 

 Government of Newfoundland. 



" Nor do I find any substantial dissent from the fourth, fifth, and 

 sixth propositions, which relate to the method of establishing the 

 nationality of the vessel entering the Treaty waters for the purpose 

 of fishing, unless it be intended, by the comments on those proposi- 

 tions, to assert that the British Government is entitled to claim that, 

 when an American goes with his vessel upon the Treaty coast 



49 for the purpose of fishing, or with his vessel enters the bays or 

 harbours of the coast for the purpose of shelter and of re- 

 pairing damages therein, or of purchasing wood, or of obtaining 



