NORTH ATLANTIC FISHERIES DISPUTE S9 



because it was then understood that such tracts of water, now free and 

 open to all, were the exclusive property of a particular power, who, being 

 the owners, admitted or excluded others from their use. The treaty of 

 1818 is in the meantime one of the few which mark an era in the diplomacy 

 of the world. As a matter of fact it is the very first which commuted 

 the rule of the cannon-shot into the three marine miles of coastal juris- 

 diction. And it really would appear unjustified to explain such historic 

 document, by referring it to international agreements of a hundred and 

 two hundred years before when the doctrine of Selden's Mare Clausum 

 was at its height and when the coastal waters were fixed at such distances 

 as sixty miles, or a hundred miles, or two days' journey from the shore 

 and the like. It seems very appropriate, on the contrary, to explain the 

 meaning of the Treaty of 1818 by comparing it with those which imme- 

 diately followed and established the same limit of coastal jurisdiction. 

 As a general rule a treaty of a former date may be very safely construed 

 by referring it to the provisions of like Treaties made by the same nation 

 on the same matter at a later time. Much more so when, as occurs in 

 the present case, the later Conventions, with no exception, starting from 

 the same premise of the three miles coastal jurisdiction arrive always to 

 a uniform policy and line of action in what refers to bays. As a matter 

 of fact all authorities approach and connect the modern fishery Treaties 

 of Great Britain and refer them to the Treaty of 1818. The second 

 edition of Kluber, for instance, quotes in the same sentence the Treaties 

 of October 20, 1818, and August 2, 1839, as fixing a distance of three 

 miles from low water mark for coastal jurisdiction. And Fiori, the 

 well-known Italian jurist, referring to the same marine miles of coastal 

 jurisdiction, says: "This rule recognized as early as the Treaty of 1818 

 between the United States and Great Britain, and that between Great 

 Britain and France in 1839, has again been admitted in the Treaty of 

 1867." (Nouveau droit International Public, Paris, 1885, Section 803.) 



This is only a recognition of the permanency and the continuity of 

 States. The Treaty of 1818 is not a separate fact unconnected with the 

 later policy of Great Britain. Its negotiators were not parties to such 

 International Convention and their powers disappeared as soon as they 

 signed the document on behalf of their countries. The parties to the 

 Treaty of 1818 were the United States and Great Britain, and what Great 

 Britain meant in 1818 about bays and fisheries, when they for the first 

 time fixed a marginal jurisdiction of three miles, can be very well ex- 

 plained by what Great Britain, the same permanent political entity, 

 understood in 1839, 1843, 1867, 1874, 1878 and 1882, when fixing the very 

 same zone of territorial waters. That a bay in Europe should be con- 

 sidered as different from a bay in America and subject to other principles 

 of international law cannot be admitted in the face of it. What the 



