346 BALCH— THE AMERICAN-BRITISH [April 22, 



International Court. At this conferer^ce, America was represented 

 by Secretary of State Root, and the British empire, by Ambassador 

 Bryce, who was aided by Mr. Aylesworth and Mr. Kent respectively 

 for the Dominion of Canada and the Colony of Newfoundland. 



In deciding upon the American-British Atlantic fisheries dispute 

 The International Court at The Hague will be called upon, accord- 

 ing to the terms of the Root-Bryce Treaty of January, 1909, to give 

 its decision upon first the right of American fishing vessels under 

 Article I. of the Treaty of 1818 to take fish in the bays and gulfs, 

 more than six miles wide ; whether the rights retained to inhabitants 

 of the United States by the Treaty of 1818 concluded between Amer- 

 ica and Great Britain, two sovereign States members of the family 

 of nations, can be regulated at will by the legislation of either Great 

 Britain herself or one of her colonies or whether all changes or reg- 

 ulations applicable to the treaty can only be made by a mutual agree- 

 ment between the original high contracting parties, the American 

 republic and the British empire ; and also, whether the inhabi- 

 tant of the United States have the liberty under Article I. of the 

 Treaty of 1818 to take fish in the territorial waters along that part 

 of the southern coast of Newfoundland which extends from Cape 

 Ray to the Rameau Islands, or along the western and northern 

 coast of Newfoundland from Cape Ray to Quirpon Islands or in 

 the territorial waters of Canada around the Magdalen Islands ? 



By an agreement, expressed in two letters exchanged on January 

 27, 1909, between Secretary Root and Ambassador Bryce, the right 

 of American vessels to pass through the Gut of Canso and to take 

 fish in the Bay of Fundy are not to be submitted for decision to the 

 International Court at The Hague. 



While the right of " innocent passage " by American vessels 

 through the Gut of Canso will not be submitted to The Hague Court, 

 yet the raising of that point by Canada in the past is too illumi- 

 native of the whole fishery question to pass it over without notice. 



About 1839 the point was raised by the authorities of Nova 

 Scotia that the Gut of Canso,**^ a passage of salt water connecting 

 the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence that passed 



" Senate Executive Documents, No. 100, 32d Congress, ist Session, Wash- 

 ington, 1852, pp. 73-74- 



