INTRODUCTION cxxxiii 



of the Convention of 1818, the language of the convention as examined 

 in the hght of the diplomatic correspondence and the evil to be corrected, 

 the views of the negotiators as far as they can be ascertained from ofScial 

 reports and subsequent statements, the constant interpretations of the 

 United States, and the acts of both parties, terminating with Lord Rose- 

 bery's measured statepient in 1886 as to the meaning of the convention, 

 would seem to suggest that irrespective of any question of international 

 law involved or supposed to be involved in the negotiation and con- 

 struction of the convention, an understanding existed between the two 

 governments regarding the limits of British sovereignty within His 

 Majesty's dominions in America, within which Americans were permitted 

 to fish, by the Convention of 181 8, and from which they were excluded 

 by the renunciatory clause of the same convention, except for four 

 specified purposes. 



If the inhabitants of the United States were free to fish irrespective 

 of treaty "without the jurisdiction of the marine league from the coasts 

 under the dominion of Great Britain," to quote the exact language of the 

 Baker letter, it could only be because the maritime jurisdiction of Eng- 

 land was confined to a marine league of the coasts under the dominion 

 of Great Britain, and that, therefore, waters beyond the marine league 

 of the coasts vmder the dominion of Great Britain were considered by 

 this power as high seas. Both Great Britain and the United States 

 appear to accept, in the absence of treaty stipulations and special 

 circumstances, the marine league as bounding their coasts, whether 

 indented or not. 



Thus in 1907, when considering the jurisdiction of Great Britain 

 over the waters of Moray Firth, where the distance between the opposite 

 shores is greater than double the marine league, Lord Fitzmaurice, 

 speaking officially as Under-Secretary of Foreign Affairs, said: 



"I pass to the position of the Foreign Office. The jurisdiction which is exercised 

 by a State over its merchant or trading vessels upon the high seas is conceded to it 

 in virtue of its ownership of them as property in a place where no local jurisdiction 

 exists. Therefore, the first thing that, in these cases, the Foreign Office has to ask is 

 Was there or was there not, territorial jurisdiction in the place where the alleged events 

 occurred? In regard to that I can certainly say that according to the views hitherto 

 accepted by aU the Departments of the Government chiefly concerned — the Foreign 

 Office, the Admiralty, the Colonial Office, the Board of Trade, and the Board of Agri- 

 culture and Fisheries — and apart from the provisions of special treaties, such as, for 

 instance, the North Sea Convention, within the limits to which that instrument appUes, 

 territorial waters are : First, the waters which extend from the coastline of any part 

 of the territory of a State to three miles from the low-water mark of such coastline; 

 secondly, the waters of lays the entrance to which is not more than six miles in width, and 

 oj which the entire land boundary forms part of the territory of a State. By custom 



