92 ARGUMENT OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



fishing in one of the largest fiords of Norway, in the northern part 

 of the country. The fishing carried on in that neighbourhood during 

 the first four months of every year is of extraordinary importance 

 to the country, some 30,000 people gathering there from south and 

 north, in order to earn their living. A government inspection con- 

 trols the fishing going on in the waters of the fiord, sheltered by a 

 range of islands against the violence of the sea. The appearance in 

 these waters of a foreign vessel pretending to take its share of the 

 fishing was an unheard of occurrence, and in the ensuing diplomatic 

 correspondence the exclusive right of Norwegian subjects to this 

 industry was energetically insisted upon as founded in immemorial 

 practice. 



" Besides, Norway and Sweden have never recognized the three 

 mile limit as the confines of their territorial waters. They have 

 neither concluded nor acceded to any treaty consecrating that rule. 

 By their municipal laws the limit has generally been fixed at one 

 geographical mile, or one fifteenth part of a degree of latitude, or 

 four marine miles, no narrower limits having ever been adopted. 

 In fact, in regard to this question of the fishing rights, so important 

 to both of the United Kingdoms, the said limits have in many in- 

 stances been found to be even too narrow." 



HEADLANDS LINE. 



The practice of fixing the outer limit of enclosed waters by a 

 line drawn between the headlands has been sometimes referred to by 

 the advocates of the United States as if it were a new theory pro- 

 pounded for the first time by Great Britain. This of course, is not 

 so. Azuni states that this practice had been generally adopted by 

 nations so long ago as 1796. Writing in that year, he said : 



" It is already established among polished nations that, in places 

 where the land, by its curve, forms a bay or a gulf , we must suppose 

 a line to be drawn from one point of the enclosing land to the other, 

 or along the small islands which extend beyond the headlands of the 

 bay, and that the whole of this bay, or gulf, is to be considered as 

 territorial sea, even though the centre may be, in some places, at a 

 greater distance than 3 miles from either shore." ("The Maritime 

 Laws of Europe," American edition, 1806, pt. 1, cap. 2, sec. 17.) 



It is, and has always been, the general practice recognised 

 105 by the usage of nations in the case of enclosed waters. Once 

 it be decided that American fishermen have no right in the 

 tracts of water known as bays on the coasts in question, then it fol- 

 lows that the three marine miles must be measured from a line drawn 

 between the headlands. 



It is unnecessary to refer the Tribunal to the numerous instances 

 in which this rule has been accepted. They are within the knowledge 

 of the Arbitrators, and fishery conventions in which this principle 

 has been expressly recognised have already been cited. It is enough 

 to refer to the convention of 1839 between France and Great Britain ; 



