ARGUMENT OF MR. ROOT 13 



"shall come into fuU force, operation and effect, in this Colony, so far as the 

 same are applicable, and shall thenceforth so continue in full force, operation 

 and eflfect, during the period mentioned in Article thirty-three of the said 

 Treaty, recited in the Schedule to this Act, any law of this Colony to the 

 contrary notwithstanding." 



Both of these correspondences I shall refer to again for 

 other purposes. I refer to them now with the sole purpose of 

 attempting to give definition to the line which I conceive must 

 be drawn between what it is competent for Great Britain to 

 do in the exercise of her general sovereignty and what it is 

 incompetent for Great Britain to do in respect of the modifica- 

 tion of our right. 



Now, to return to the question which the President asked as 

 to the concluding words of Mr. Marcy's circular advising the fisher- 

 men to appeal to their own government in case they found discrimi- 

 nation or interference with their right. 



Of course it follows from the fact that Great Britain has the 

 general right of sovereignty, and the general right to pass laws within 

 that jurisdiction, that there may be, as Lord SaHsbury justly ob- 

 serves, an inadvertent overstepping of the line. That is always 

 possible, wherever you draw the line, and of course those hues are 

 not to be passed upon by fishermen, the statutes are to be respected, 

 and, as Mr. Marcy instructs the fishermen, appeal must be made 

 to their own government; as Lord Salisbury says in the letter to 

 which I have referred, the subject is to be taken up by the govern- 

 ments. 



No one on the part of the United States has ever been so lost 

 to all considerations of the way in which government must be 

 conducted as to claim anything to the contrary of that. 



Wherever there is doubt as to whether a law is within or 

 not within the competency of the government which has general 

 sovereignty over the territory in which the law is to be appHed 

 that doubt must be resolved in a decent and orderly manner, in 

 accordance with the customs of nations, not by having individuals 

 take the law into their own hands and say, I will obey or I will not 

 obey. That is true, wherever the line is drawn. 



But, there still remains the question, when the two govern- 

 ments come to consider whether a law that has been passed does 



