xcviii INTRODUCTION 



inhabitants to aid them in their fishing; that the right to employ non- 

 inhabitants was general, and that the right of Newfoundland to forbid 

 Newfoundlanders from engaging as members of an American fishing 

 crew was not necessarily involved in the question. To determine the 

 question it was necessary to consider the parties to the grant and the 

 purpose of the treaty. 



It would seem reasonably clear that the contracting parties were 

 Great Britain and the United States; that the grant was made by Great 

 Britain, and that the United States took the grant. The inhabitants 

 of the United States were the beneficiaries, but they were not the con- 

 tracting parties. The question, therefore, was a national question and 

 it was intended not merely for the benefit of citizens, but of inhabitants 

 of the United States — a much broader term. Great Britain admitted 

 that American inhabitants might fish, but that the benefits of the treaty ' 

 were limited to inhabitants. This raises the further question, when are 

 inhabitants fishing? For while the Uberty is a grant to inhabitants 

 generally, its terms apply specifically only to inhabitants who avail 

 themselves of the treaty right; that is to say, who are actually fishing 

 within British waters. Attention was called to the fact that the various 

 French treaties granted the liberty to fish not to France, but to the sub- 

 jects of His Most Christian Majesty, and that, during the entire history 

 of the French right, French subjects did not appear to be restricted in 

 their employees to French subjects. The reply of Great Britain to this 

 was the assertion that only French subjects had engaged in fishing and 

 that French subjects engaged in fishing had not employed foreigners.' 

 The French treaties, therefore, throw no Ught on the subject, and the 

 matter must be considered by itself. 



The fundamental question seems to be who derives benefit from the 

 act of fishing. If the vessel be an American vessel and the profit of the 

 expedition accrues to American inhabitants, it would seem that the entire 

 venture is American, or is the venture of American inhabitants, and that 

 on famiUar principles a person entitled to a right may exercise it either 

 by himself or through his agent. This might not always be the case, 

 but it seems to be a well-settled principle of the common law from the 

 time of the Year Books to the present day that a right in the nature of a 

 license to the grantee, provided it be for profit and not for pleasure, may 

 be exercised by the servant or agent of the person entitled, whereas if the 



> "It may be well to mention incidentally in regard to Mr. Root's contention that no claim 

 to place such restriction on the French right of fishery was ever put forward by Great Britain; 

 that there was never any occasion to advance it, for the reason that foreigners other than French- 

 men were never employed by French fishing vessels." (Sir Edward Grey's note, dated June 

 JO, igo7, to Mr. Whitelaw Reid, Appendix, pp. 4Sg, 461; Appendix, British Case, p. 570; 

 Appendix, U. S. Case, p. 1003.) 



