ARGUMENT OF MR. ROOT 73 



part, without a similar treatment derogating from or taking away 

 the advantage to the other country. All the conditions of the trad- 

 ing right urge the people of each country towards its preservation 

 and continuance in its full force, because upon the preservation of 

 the other country's benefits depends the preservation of their own 

 benefits. But a right like this, perpetual as against all the chang- 

 ing conditions of the changing years, always a burden, is sure to 

 become vexatious, the cause of irritation and of resentment, with 

 no interest on the part of the people of the country on which the " 

 burden rests for its preservation, for nothing more comes to them. 

 The trading right in its nature urges to preservation. The perpet- 

 ual burden in its nature urges to destruction. And the course of 

 conduct on the part of the government of Newfoundland which I 

 have been detaiUng, without criticism or condemnation, is but the 

 subjection of our right to the inevitable working of human nature 

 which must apply to every such right as this, and which must de- 

 mand for the efficacy of the grant of the right an exemption from 

 the opportunity for municipal legislation to control, Umit, restrict, 

 or modify the right. 



The President: If I understand you well, Mr. Senator Root, 

 you base the claim that this right is quite of an exceptional char- 

 acter, that it is different from the regular treaty rights, on its 

 perpetuity ? 



Senator Root: It is different from the regular treaty rights 

 of trading, for instance, the kind of rights that I am speaking about, 

 in two respects: one that it is perpetual and therefore must meet 

 the changing conditions of the country to which it appUes, and the 

 other that it is a one-sided burden. 



Judge Gray: That it is unilateral. 



Senator Root: That it is unilateral and has to sustain it, no 

 continuing benefit whatever coming to the country upon which it 

 is a burden. 



The President: How would it have been with the rights of 

 the American fishermen in British territorial waters according to 

 the treaties of 1854 and 187 1? Were these rights the same or 

 were they different? 



