QUESTION TWO. 43 



water, he is bound to furnish evidence that all the members of his 

 crew are inhabitants of the United States. We cannot for a moment 

 admit the existence of any such limitation upon our Treaty rights. 

 The liberty assured to us by the Treaty plainly includes the right to 

 use all the means. customary or appropriate for fishing upon the sea, 

 not only ships ancl nets and boats, but crews to handle the ships and 

 the nets and the boats. No right to control or limit the means which 

 Americans shall use in fishing can be admitted unless it is provided 

 in the terms of the Treaty, and no right to question the nationality 

 of the crews employed is contained in the terms of the treaty." 



In Sir Edward Grey's reply (addressed to Mr. Whitelaw Reid, the 

 20th June, 1907), he said (British Case, App., p. 507) : 



" His Majesty's Government, on the one hand, claim that the Treaty 

 gave no fishing rights to American vessels as such, but only to in- 

 habitants of the United States and that the latter are bound to con- 

 form to such Newfoundland laws and regulations as are reasonable 

 and not inconsistent with the exercise of their Treaty -rights. The 

 United States Government, on the other hand, assert that American 

 rights may be exercised irrespectively of any laws or regulations 

 which the Newfoundland Government may impose, and agree that 

 as ships strictly speaking can have no rights or duties, whenever the 

 term is used, it is but a convenient or customary form of describing 

 the owners' or masters' rights. As the Newfoundland fishery, how- 

 ever, is essentially a ship fishery, they consider that it is probably 

 quite unimportant which form or expression is used. 



" By way of qualification Mr. Root goes on to say that if it is in- 

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

 when an American goes with his vessel upon the Treaty Coast for 

 the purpose of fishing, or with his vessel enters the bays or harbours 

 of the coast for the purpose of obtaining shelter, and of repairing 

 damages therein, or of purchasing wood, or of obtaining water, he is 

 bound to furnish evidence that all the members of the crew are in- 

 habitants of the United States, he is obliged entirely to dissent from 

 any such proposition. 



" The views of His Majesty's Government are quite clear upon this 

 point. The Convention of 1818 laid down that the inhabitants of the 

 United States should have for ever in common with the subjects of 

 His Britannic Majesty the liberty to take fish of every kind on the 

 coasts of Newfoundland within the limits which it proceeds to define. 



" This right is not given to American vessels, and the distinction 

 is an important one from the point of view of His Majesty's Govern- 

 ment, as it is upon the actual words of the Convention that they base 

 their claim to deny any right under the Treaty to American 

 50 masters to employ other than American fishermen for the tak- 

 ing of fish in Newfoundland Treaty waters. 



" Mr. Root's language, however, appears to imply that the condi- 

 tion which His Majesty's Government seek to impose on the right of 

 fishing is a condition upon the entry of an American vessel into the 

 Treaty waters for the purpose of fishing. This is not the case. His 

 Majesty's Government do not contend that every person on board an 

 American vessel fishing in the Treaty waters must be an inhabitant 

 of the United States, but merely that no such person is entitled to 



