96 FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE 



JtJDGE Gray: The sovereign to whom this right is granted may 

 also, following out your own line of argument, relinquish or destroy 

 it by renouncing the treaty ? 



Senator Root: Precisely; it may relinquish or destroy it, 

 and in this treaty it does renounce and destroy the right which it 

 claimed to have, and had had under the treaty of 1783, in regard 

 to the great extent of British treaty coasts other than this special 

 reservation. 



Sir Charles Fitzpatrick: Going back to the legal proposition, 

 the power to regulate a treaty right to be exercised in foreign 

 territory seems to me necessarily to involve the power to protect 

 that treaty right, to protect the inhabitant in the exercise of that 

 treaty right. Sovereignty must include that, surely, as a legal 

 proposition ? 



Senator Root: It involves, not by grant of the treaty, but as 

 the existence of every right involves, the right to make war in its 

 defense; not a right granted by the treaty, but the superior and 

 all-embracing right of independence to defend one's rights. We 

 claim under this treaty no right whatever to the exercise of force 

 in British waters. We say that as to this treaty right, with its 

 narrow powers of sovereignty over the exercise of a liberty by our 

 own citizens, and with regard to every right that the United States 

 possesses, there may come a time when we shall be compelled to 

 defend our rights; but we appeal to no treaty as the basis of that 

 defense; it is because we are an independent nation, and it is 

 essential to independence that at times a nation shall be ready to 

 maintain its independence by maintaining its rights. 



The Preshjent: If you please, Mr. Senator Root: Is your 

 proposition that American fishermen, in exercising their industry 

 in British waters, only depend upon American sovereignty, and 

 not upon the territorial sovereignty of Great Britain? 



Senator Root: My contention is that American fishermen, 

 exercising the liberty in British waters so far as regards the entire 

 range of personal conduct, are under British sovereignty. 



The Preshdent: Yes, I forgot to quaHfy the question. 



