PREFACE 



Instances must indeed be rare, if not wholly unknown, in which 

 the statesman who raised and framed the issue appeared as counsel 

 and argued the case before an International Tribunal. These 

 unusual circumstances met in the person of Senator Root who, as 

 Secretary of State, raised and framed the issues in the North Atlan- 

 tic Coast Fisheries Arbitration, and argued the case thus raised and 

 made as leading counsel for the United States before the Special 

 Tribunal of the Permanent Court at The Hague in 1910. If Mr. 

 Root did not speak the first word in this historic controversy, which 

 may be said to antedate the recognition of our independence, he 

 nevertheless spoke the final word, so far as the present is concerned. 

 His argument is therefore of more than passing interest, and the 

 case, bearing as it does the impress of a single mind, is well worth 

 careful study and analysis. 



In an address dehvered before the American Society for Judicial 

 Settlement of International Disputes on December 17, 1910, Presi- 

 dent Taft aptly said: 



" What teaches nations and peoples the possibility of permanent peace is 

 the actual settlement of controversies by courts of arbitration. The settle- 

 ment of the Alabama controversy by the Geneva arbitration, the settlement 

 of the Seals controversy by the Paris Tribunal, and the settlement of the 

 Newfoundland Fisheries controversy by The Hague Tribunal are three great 

 substantial steps toward permanent peace, three facts accomplished that have 

 done more for the cause than anything else in history." 



Accepting this statement as correct, a study of the controversy and 

 the steps by which it was settled would seem to be as important as 

 it is enlightening, as showing by a concrete example the means by 

 which a controversy which embittered the relations of two great 

 and fraternal peoples and which, on more than one occasion, 

 threatened war, was settled as easily and successfully as disputes 

 between private litigants are settled by national courts of justice. 

 Mr. Root yielded to the request that his argument be published 



