76 ARGUMENT OF GEEAT BRITAIN. 



bays would be manifestly opposed to the clear meaning of that 

 language. 



His Majesty's Government is not, as yet, aware of the reasons by 

 which the contention of the United States is to be supported, but 

 whatever they may prove to be, it is submitted that the Tribunal will 

 no go behind the language of a treaty when, as in the present case, 

 that language is distinct and is free from any ambiguity. The well- 

 known rule of construction on this point is stated by Vattel in the 

 following passage (Bk. 2, 263) : 



" The first general maxim of interpretation is, that It is not allow- 

 able to interpret what has no need of interpretation. When a deed 

 is worded in clear and precise terms, when its meaning is evident, 

 and leads to no absurd conclusion, there can be no reason for refus- 

 ing to admit the meaning which such deed naturally presents. To go 

 elsewhere in search of conjectures, in order to restrict or extend it, 

 is but an attempt to elude it. If this dangerous method be once ad- 

 mitted, there will be no deed which it will not render useless. How- 

 ever luminous each clause may be, however clear and precise the 

 terms in which the deed is couched, all this will be of no avail, if it 

 be allowed to go in quest of extraneous arguments, to prove that it 

 is not to be understood in the sense which it naturally presents. 



" Those cavillers who dispute the sense of a clear and determinate 

 article, are accustomed to seek their frivolous subterfuges in the pre- 

 tended intentions and views which they attribute to its author. It 

 would be very often dangerous to enter with them into the discus- 

 sion of those supposed views that are not pointed out in the piece 

 itself. The following rule is better calculated to foil such cavillers, 

 and will at once cut short all chicanery : // he who could and ought 

 to have explained himself clearly and fully has not done it, it is the 

 worse for him: he cannot l>e allowed to introduce subsequent restric- 

 tions which he has not expressed. This is a maxim of the Roman 

 law: Pactionem obscuram Us nocere in quorum fuit potestate legem 

 apertius conscribere. The equity of this rule is glaringly obvious, 

 and its necessity is not less evident. There will be no security in con- 

 ventions, no stability in grants or concessions, if they may be rendered 

 nugatory by subsequent limitations, which ought to have been origi- 

 nally specified in the deed, if they were in the contemplation of the 

 contracting parties." ( 264.) 



The Case presented on behalf of the United States is directed less 

 to an examination of the actual provisions of the treaty than to a 

 search for some outside consideration which may be used to defeat 

 the .plain language of it. An endeavour is, it seems, to be made 

 87 to set up some alleged principle of law to which the plain con- 

 struction of the treaty must give way; reliance is placed on 

 some conditions which are said to have been in existence in 1818, but 

 of which no proof has yet been given ; attention is directed to some 

 supposed intentions of the American negotiators, and stress is laid on 

 expressions used from time to time in the long correspondence which 

 has passed between the parties. His Majesty's Government is confi- 



