32 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 



(/) Finally to hold that the United States, the grantee of the fishing 

 right, has a voice in the preparation of fishery legislation involves the 

 recognition of a right in that country to participate in the internal legis- 

 lation of Great Britain and her colonies, and to that extent would reduce 

 these countries to a state of dependence. 



Wliile therefore unable to concede the claim of the United States as 

 based on the Treaty, this Tribunal considers that such claim has been 

 and is, to some extent, conceded in the relations now existing between 

 the two Parties. Whatever may have been the situation under the Treaty 

 of 1818 standing alone, the exercise of the right of regulation inherent in 

 Great Britain has been, and is, limited by the repeated recognition of 

 the obligations already referred to, by the limitations and liabilities 

 accepted in the Special Agreement, by the unequivocal position assumed 

 by Great Britain in the presentation of its case before this Tribunal, and 

 by the consequent view of this Tribunal that it would be consistent with 

 all the circumstances, as revealed by this record, as to the duty of Great 

 Britain, that she should submit the reasonableness of any future regula- 

 tion to such an impartial arbitral test, affording full opportunity there- 

 for, as is hereafter recommended under the authority of Article IV of 

 the Special Agreement, whenever the reasonableness of any regulation is 

 objected to or challenged by the United States in the manner, and within 

 the time hereinafter specified in the said recommendation. 



Now therefore this Tribunal decides and awards as follows : 



The right of Great Britain to make regulations without the consent 

 of the United States, as to the exercise of the liberty to take fish refer- 

 red to in Article I of the Treaty of October 20, 1818, in the form of 

 municipal laws, ordinances or rules of Great Britain, Canada or New- 

 foundland is inherent to the sovereignty of Great Britain. 



The exercise of that right by Great Britain is, however, limited by 

 the said Treaty in respect of the said liberties therein granted to the in- 

 habitants of the United States in that such regulations must be made 

 bona fide and must not be in violation of the said Treaty. 



Regulations which are (1) appropriate or necessary for the pro- 

 tection and preservation of such fisheries, or (2) desirable or necessary 

 on grounds of public order and morals without unnecessarily interfer- 

 ing with the fishery itself, and in both cases equitable and fair as be- 

 tween local and American fishermen, and not so framed as to give 

 unfairly an advantage to the former over the latter class, are not in- 

 consistent with the obligation to execute the Treaty in good faith, and 

 are therefore reasonable and not in violation of the Treaty. 



For the decision of the question whether a regulation is or is not 

 reasonable, as being or not in accordance with the dispositions of the 



