30 FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE 



It would seem quite natural that in framing the treaty of 1818, 

 when they came to substitute definite limits on the Newfoundland 

 coast for the description of such parts as British fishermen should 

 use, thus dropping out that safeguard against the French, and 

 when instead of saying "such part .... as British fishermen 

 shall use," they said, "you may go from the Quirpon Islands to 

 Cape Ray," it should occur to them before they finished that they 

 had dropped out that element of protection against the French; 

 and the words, "in common with British fishermen" may well have 

 been inserted in order to save them from interference with the 

 French right of fishing. So that if the French fishermen were in 

 fact entitled, or if it should turn out that France could maintain 

 her right to exclusiveness imder her treaty, the American right 

 should not go beyond the right that the British in fact had. 



There is a certain support for that view, not merely in the 

 natural disposition that men would have to protect themselves, 

 but in the negotiations of 1824. 



You will remember after the French had warned the Americans 

 off the coast of Newfoundland, there was a claim made by the 

 United States to which reference has already been made. The 

 claim runs in this way, in words that have already been read to 

 the Tribunal, and I will not ask you to turn to them again, on the 

 part of the United States: 



"It is obvious that if Great Britain cannot make good the title which the 

 United States holds under her to take fish on the western coast of Newfound- 

 land it will rest with her to indemnify them for the loss." 



And, upon that, in the negotiations which included some other 

 things, in 1824 there was a protocol which appears on p. 126 of 

 the United States Counter-Case Appendix. It is the very last 

 paragraph on that page: 



"The citizens of the United States were clearly entitled, under the con- 

 vention of October, 1818, to a participation with His Majesty's subjects in 

 certain fishing Uberties on the coasts of Newfoundland; the Government of 

 the United States might, therefore, require a declaration of the extent of those 

 Uberties as enjoyed by British subjects under any limitations prescribed by 

 treaty with other powers, and protection in the exercise of the liberties so 

 limited, in common with British subjects, within the jurisdiction of his Majesty 

 as sovereign of the island of Newfoundland." 



