lOO FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE 



support from the sea as an object of the right of protection by 

 the sovereign. 



That is essentially a relation of sovereignty. Efforts have been 

 made at times by monarchs in former days, when the old theory 

 of ownership prevailed, to separate some portions of the opportunity 

 and grant them to individuals or corporations — special rights to 

 fish, seldom, I think, out in the marginal seas or territorial seas, 

 but in interior waters. However, those instances have been ex- 

 ceptional. The attempt unduly to restrict this great natural right 

 of his subjects, and to create monopolies in particular places, was 

 one of the great things that cost Charles I his head. Universally, 

 now, the relation of the state to the fishing of its coastal population 

 is the sovereign right of protection; and we are certified in this 

 treaty that that is the relation of Great Britain, for in it she declares 

 that this liberty which the inhabitants of the United States are to 

 have forever is to be in common with the subjects of Great Britain. 



Now, I say we are agreed upon this, and perhaps I should not 

 discuss it further. It is the subject-matter of countless treaties 

 regulating these rights, sovereign acts, the North Sea Convention, 

 treaties with France of 1839, treaties of various and many powers 

 with each other, all in the exercise of this sovereign right of 

 protection. 



The Act of 1878 of Great Britain puts the matter on a sound 

 basis, "The Territorial Waters Act." It is in the British Appendix, 

 p. 574. The second section of that Act says that an offense com- 

 mitted by a person on the open sea within the territorial waters of 

 Her Majesty's dominions shall be punished, and so on, and then at 

 the foot of that page there is a definition: 



"The territorial waters of Her Majesty's dominions, in reference to the 

 sea, means such part of the sea adjacent to the coast of the United Kingdom, 

 or the coast of some other part of Her Majesty's dominions, as is deemed by 

 international law to be within the territorial sovereignty of Her Majesty." 



That is section 7 of this Act of 1878, The Territorial Waters 

 Act, British Appendix, p. 574. 



Despagnet has stated the rule very accurately in the work 

 which is already in the hands of the Court. He says in section 

 411 of his work: 



