ARGUMENT OF MR. ROOT 7 



words that the British Minister wished included — I am reading 

 from p. 211 of the British Case Appendix, the italicized words near 

 the foot of the page: 



"American citizens would indeed, within British jurisdiction, be liable 

 equally with British subjects to the penalties prescribed by law for a willful 

 infraction of such regulations, but nevertheless should these be so framed or 

 executed as to make any discrimination in favor of the British fishermen 

 or to impair the rights secured to American fishermen by the Reciprocity 

 Treaty, those injuriously affected by- them wiU appeal to this Government 

 for redress." 



Mr. Marcy apparently dechned to substitute those words for 

 his own. At all events, he did not substitute them, but instead 

 of that he put in a statement, which is the first example of the 

 drawing of the hne between what Great Britain could do and what 

 Great Britain could not do, to which I ask your attention. What 

 he put into his circular, in place of the denial of his own first circular, 

 and in the place of the declaration of binding obligation which the 

 British Minister wanted to put in, was: first a statement of this 

 very general jurisdiction, general sovereign right of Great Britain 

 to which I have already referred; and, secondly, a statement of the 

 limitation in regard to the treaty. What he said was — and I now 

 read from the final circular, on p. 209 of the British Appendix: 



"By granting the mutual use of the inshore fisheries neither party has 

 yielded its right to civil jurisdiction over a marine league along its coast. Its 

 laws are as obligatory upon the citizens or subjects of the other as upon its 



own." 



To that proposition we fully subscribe, with the addition which 

 he makes of the particular situation in which the treaty places 

 laws relating to the subject-matter of the treaty. That addition 

 was in these words: 



"The laws of the British Provinces not in conflict with the provisions of 

 the Reciprocity Treaty would be as binding upon citizens of the United States 

 within that jurisdiction as upon British subjects." 



There is the first statement. It is first in point of being gen- 

 eral, and it is first historically. General jurisdiction untouched; 

 laws of the jurisdiction binding upon American citizens as 

 fully as upon British subjects; laws not inconsistent with the 



