INTRODUCTION xxix 



:i. "That the people of the United States shall continue to enjoy unmolested the 

 right to take fish of every kind ... in the Gulph of Saint Lawrence, and at all other 

 places in the sea where the inhabitants of both countries used at any time heretofore 

 to fish." 



In the balance of the article no reference is made to the antecedent 

 rights of the people or inhabitants of the United States, although the 

 American contention is equally applicable. It will be observed that 

 although the fishery is discussed and regulated within the compass of a 

 single article, there is apparent in the minds of the negotiators, or at least 

 in the language used, a two-fold division: the deep sea fishery is dis- 

 posed of in the first sentence; the inshore fishery in the second and con- 

 cluding sentence. Again, each subdivision is susceptible of a two-fold 

 division. The people of the United States are to continue to enjoy 

 unmolested the right to take fish on the Grand Bank and aU other banks 

 of Newfoundland; that is to say, American fishermen are to continue to 

 enjoy the right to fish on the Grand Bank and on all other banks of 

 Newfoundland, and in the prosecution of the fishery upon all the seas 

 they are to be unmolested. The right to fish upon the high seas does not 

 lie in grant because international law permits any and every nation to 

 fish upon the high seas, but a nation may renounce this right in favor of 

 another nation, as indeed France and Spain had by treaty with Great 

 Britain specifically renotmced this right. "^ The provisions of the French 

 and Spanish treaties would not affect the rights of American fishermen, 

 but the use of the term "unmolested" removed any possible doubt that 

 might arise upon the subject. In the next place American fishermen 

 were "to continue to enjoy unmolested the right to take fish ... in 

 the Gulph of Saint Lawrence and at all other places in the sea" where 

 the inhabitants of either country had heretofore fished. It would seem 

 that the Gulf of St. Lawrence and other places in the sea were regarded 

 by the negotiators as differing somewhat from the situation of the 

 Grand Banks, admittedly within the high seas. International law does 



' Thus in the Treaty of Utrecht (Article XII) France agreed that the "subjects of the 

 Most Christian King shall hereafter be excluded from all kinds of fishing in the said seas, bays, 

 and other places, on the coast of Nova Scotia, that is to say, on those which lie towards the east, 

 within 30 leagues, beginning at the island commonly called Sable, inclusively, and thence 

 stretching along towards the southwest." 



Again by the Treaty of Paris (1763) France renounced the right to fish within three leagues, 

 and fifteen leagues, and thirty leagues of certain specified coasts (Article V) . 



By the Treaty of Versailles 1783 (Article VI) the provisions of Article V of the Treaty of 

 Paris are confirmed: "With regard to the fishery in the Gulf of St. Laurence the French 

 shall continue to exercise it conformably to the fifth article of the treaty of Paris." 



Article XVIII of the Treaty of Paris, to which Spain was a party, excluded Spain from the 

 coasts of Newfoundland: "His Catholic Majesty desists, as well for himself as for his succes- 

 sors, from all pretention which he may have formed in favour of the Guipuscoans, and other his 

 subjects, to the right of fishing in the neighbourhood of the island of Newfoundland." 



