ARGUMENT OF MR. ROOT 49 



that the attention of American fishermen has been directed not to 

 undertaking to get ashore and have a fight with the inhabitants, 

 but to getting their bait in the best way they could. And so long 

 as they could buy it, down to 1905, it was a matter of comparatively 

 little consequence. When I come to discuss the British view of 

 the inferences to be drawn from the fact that the fishing is in com- 

 mon, I am going to say something more about this question of 

 shore rights. But what I have said serves my present purpose, 

 which is to enumerate the successive steps by which the shore of 

 Nevyfoundland was protected against us. The shore fishermen, 

 in the exercise of their industry, protested against the foreigner 

 coming there, and the foreigner was compelled to purchase until, 

 in 1905, the right to purchase was cut off, and he found himself 

 with this barrier against the exercise of the treaty right of taking 

 fish standing before him, both being in pursuance of a general pur- 

 pose to shut him out from getting bait which would enable him to 

 compete with Newfoundlanders in the bank fishery. 



The Tribunal will perceive that by itself this exclusion from the 

 shore made it inevitable that the kind of fishery that the Americans 

 prosecuted should be a different kind of fishery from that which 

 the Newfoundlanders prosecuted. It made the necessary working 

 of the industry such that it was aptly described by Mr. Evarts 

 when he said that it was impossible that the rights of the strand 

 fishermen and the vessel fishermen should be turned over entirely 

 to the determination of either one of them. 



There was a series of statutes, I have said, and we have — 



The President: The exclusion from the shores of the Magda- 

 len Islands was reported at the Halifax Commission by the United 

 States agent himself ? 



Senator Root: Yes. 



The President: In the course of the argument. 



Senator Root: Of course coimsel there were dealing with a 

 practical situation, and it was their tendency to minimize as much 

 as possible what was coming from Great Britain. 



The President: Those tactics were observed on both sides. 



