io8 FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE 



The President: No, it was a grant to the United States for 

 the benefit of the inhabitants of the United States. 



Senator Root : It is a grant to the United States, and a right 

 granted to the United States, of course, belongs to the United 

 States. It is its right. 



The Prestoent: Is it not the essence of every international 

 right that it belongs to the state ? When you say that a treaty is 

 made for the benefit of the inhabitants of the state, you mean that 

 it confers the right on the state and not on the inhabitants? It 

 is a contract, not between the inhabitants, but between the two 

 states ? 



Senator Root: Precisely. This is a right of the United States, 

 and it is a right which must persist forever. The grant of a right 

 forever, independent of the promise of the grantor, made so by 

 impressing upon it the quality of perpetuity, is a conveyance and 

 is not a mere obligation. That is my proposition. 



The President: So that every right conferred on a state in 

 perpetuity would be a conveyance and not a mere obligation; 

 would convey a part of the sovereignty to the grantee state ? 



Senator Root: Every right conveyed to the state in perpe- 

 tuity, so that it is not open to destruction, or impairment by the 

 grantor, and relating to the use of the territory of the grantor, made 

 in perpetuity, is a conveyance. 



Judge Gray: It no longer rests in promise, but it is an executed 

 grant. 



Senator Root: It no longer rests in promise, but is an executed 

 grant. There is no other way to give effect to that quality that 

 was imported, or expressed, by the word "forever." Of course. 

 Great Britain stands upon the proposition that the territorial zone 

 and the bays, creeks, inlets, and harbors to which this right relates 

 is a portion of her territory, over which she exercises sovereignty. 

 That is the basis of her position, and I need not stop to argue it. 

 So that the right which was conveyed to the United States is the 

 right of one independent nation to make use forever, for its own 

 benefit in a prescribed area, of the territory of another independent 



