10 FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE 



authority of Provincial legislation to regulate the enjoyment by our people 

 of the inshore fishery, which seems to be intimated, if not asserted, in Lord 

 Salisbury's note. 



"Before the receipt of a reply from Her Majesty's Government, it would 

 be premature to consider what should be the course of this Government should 

 this limitation upon the treaty privileges of the United States be insisted upon 

 by the British Government as their construction of the treaty." 



In response to that plain challenge, Lord Salisbury proceeded 

 to draw the line which, as I conceive, it is to be your function to 

 draw. In his reply of the 7th November, 1878, United States 

 Case Appendix, p. 657, he said, in a paragraph which I shall read 

 from p. 658 : 



"I hardly believe, however, that Mr. Evarts would in discussion adhere 

 to the broad doctrine which some portion of his language woul.d appear to con- 

 vey, that no British authority has a right to pass any kind of laws binding 

 Americans who are fishing in British waters; for if that contention be just, 

 the same disability applies a fortiori to any other power, and the waters must 

 be delivered over to anarchy." 



There he stated what I have stated, and what Mr. Marcy had 

 stated, as to the general jurisdictional power of Great Britain over 

 her colony. 



And subsequently, Mr. Evarts, rather sharply and with language 

 which indicated that no such idea ought to be imputed to him or 

 suggested as conceived by him, repudiated any such view. 



Lord Salisbury went on to state the other side of the question. 

 Having stated in this form what, clearly. Great Britain can do, 

 and having been challenged in due form to make a frank avowal 

 or disavowal of the paramoimt authority of provincial legislation 

 to regulate the enjojTnent by our people of the inshore fisheries, 

 he proceeded to state what Great Britain cannot do. 



"On the other hand," he said, "Her Majesty's Government will readily 

 admit — what is, indeed, self-evident — that British sovereignty, as regards 

 those waters, is limited in its scope by the engagements of the Treaty of Wash- 

 ington, which cannot be modified or affected by any municipal legislation." 



And, in his further correspondence, after arguing that Acts 

 passed before the treaty was made did not come within this limi- 

 tation, he supplemented his former statement in his letter of the 



