i6o THE SEA FISHERIES 



have been treated with great comprehensiveness by Wemyss 



Fulton. Reference must, therefore, be made to this work by those 



desirous of obtaining the most complete and accurate account of 



the subject. 1 The most that can be attempted here is to give a 



brief account of the more important conventions which have 



exercised or still exercise an influence over British sea fisheries. 



Theories concerning the areas over which any given State has rights 



of jurisdiction in fishery matters have varied considerably from 



time to time ; and it has even been urged by the representatives 



of certain Governments that the exclusive fishery rights differ at 



one and the same time in different parts of the world, according 



as the so-called " rights " of their subjects or citizens were affected. 



For instance, the United States claimed exclusive fishery rights 



over the whole of the Behring Sea, while claiming the narrowest 



limit possible in favour of her own subjects off the coasts of the 



British North American Colonies. The United States' claim in 



the Behring Sea was principally in reference to the fur-seal fisheries ; 



but the tribunal of arbitration to which the question was referred 



in Paris in 1893 decided by a majority of five to two that " the 



United States has not any right of protection or property in the fur 



seals frequenting the islands of the United States in Behring Sea, 



when such seals are found outside the ordinary 3-mile limit." 



For practical purposes the International Conventions for the 

 protection of the fisheries to which Great Britain is a party, and in 

 which the territorial waters or the waters where each State has the 

 exclusive right of fishery are defined, are as follows : The Con- 

 ventions of 1839 and 1867 with France ; the Convention of 1882 

 with Germany, France, Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands ; 

 and the Convention of 1901 with Denmark. Broadly speaking, 

 each of these Conventions was the outcome of disputes between the 

 fishermen of the different countries as to the exact limits within 

 which they had the exclusive right of fishing, so that, naturally, 

 each convention defines the exclusive fishery limits as agamst the 

 subjects of the other State or States signatory to the Convention. 

 In their definition of the territorial waters these conventions differ, 

 though there is a general tendency to agreement on the mam point. 

 The first Convention in which the exclusive fishery area of the 

 British and French coasts was defined was that of 1839. For some 

 years previously French fishermen had complamed bitterly agamst 

 the English practice of dredging for oysters m the vicinity of the 

 French coast'; while large fleets of F-ch flashing ve^^^^^^^^^^^^ 



Calais, Boulogne and Dieppe were m '^^^^^X^'^'^'^l^'lZ 

 coasts of Kent and Essex, in many cases withm half a league ot the 



» The Sovereignty of the Seas. 191 1- 



