INTRODUCTION cxi 



its inhabitants were excluded and to which they could not approach 

 within three miles were territorial bays — that is to say, bays so assimi- 

 lated to the land as to be properly subject to the exclusive territorial 

 or local jurisdiction of Great Britain. 



In simplest terms, Great Britain maintained that a bay is a bay, 

 whether large or small; that a hne should be drawn from headland to 

 headland, and that American fishermen were forbidden by the con- 

 vention to approach within three miles of the line so drawn. The 

 United States insisted that there are bays and bays; large bays in the 

 geographical sense which are high seas and without the jurisdiction of 

 any one nation; that the bays contemplated by the Convention of 

 1818 were the small territorial bays within the exclusive jurisdiction 

 of Great Britain — that is to say, bays six miles or less at the point of 

 entrance; that in bays of such dimensions a Une should be drawn where 

 the width was six miles or less and that American fishermen were 

 only forbidden to approach, except for the four specified purposes, 

 within three miles of this line; that bays whose mouths were larger 

 than six mUes across were not bays of His Britannic Majesty's 

 dominions and that American fishermen could enter such bays to 

 take, dry, and cure fish within three miles of a line drawn from 

 shore to shore where the opposing points were more than six miles 

 apart. 



On the issue thus raised the Tribunal held that the convention em- 

 ployed the term bays in the geographical sense and that the United 

 States renounced the liberty to take, dry, or cure fish within three miles 

 of the bays on the non-treaty coast, and that the United States retained 

 the right only to enter such bays for the four specified purposes. In the 

 case of bays it said "the three marine miles are to be measured from 

 a straight line drawn across the body of water at the place where it 

 ceases to have the configuration and characteristics of a bay. At all 

 other places the three marine miles are to be measured following the 

 sinuosities of the coast." ^ 



The Tribunal evidently felt that its holding was unsatisfactory from 

 a practical point of view, because each bay must be examined in order 

 to determine where "it ceases to have the configuration and character- 

 istics of a bay." It therefore recommended, by a somewhat strained 

 and artificial construction of Article IV of the Special Agreement, the 

 acceptance of the ten mile rule prescribed by treaties between Great 

 Britain and France, the North German Confederation and the German 

 Empire, and the North Sea Convention of 1882, that "only bays of ten 



* Appendix, p. $4! Oral Argument, p. 1454. 



