112 FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE 



1783, words were not used here loosely or carelessly. The men who 

 drafted and settled this knew what they meant by the words that 

 they used, and, of course, this right of the United States had been 

 the subject of very careful and critical analysis. The United States 

 was being compelled to surrender a large part of its right, and they, 

 of course, used words with the greatest care for the purpose of 

 securing a definite, and perpetual, and effective right. It was not 

 by mere accident that they used the words "the inhabitants of the 

 said United States shall have, forever, in common with the subjects 

 of His Britannic Majesty, the Uberty to take fish of every kind." 



The natural inference, from the fact that two nations have rights 

 in common is not that one of them shall have entire control of both 

 rights and shall determine when it is desirable for the common inter- 

 est that the rights shall be hmited or modified. That is not the 

 natural inference. The natural inference from the legal effect of 

 the fact that two nations have common rights is that they shall 

 have a common voice in modifying or changing the rights, and the 

 real ground upon which the claim is made for an exclusive right in 

 Great Britain to say what modifications shall be made in both of 

 these common rights is not that the rights are common, but it is 

 that it is her soil, her territory. The inference is not aided or added 

 to in the slightest degree by the fact that the rights are in common: 

 the inference from the fact that the rights are in common is all the 

 other way. 



I think I have already disposed of the idea that there is to be 

 any inference, any impUcation, from the fact that it is within British 

 territory, that British sovereignty controls the exercise of the right. 

 I think I have disposed of that, and that is' the sole ground for the 

 contention that Great Britain can control the common right. The 

 fact that the right is common adds nothing whatever to it. 



But, let us examine a little further this idea, that the common 

 quaUty of the rights of the two nations justifies one of them in con- 

 trolhng both. They are equal, and they are held by two equal 

 independent sovereign states. The rights of one are of as great 

 sanctity and dignity as the rights of the other. Great Britain is 

 the sole judge of the time when, the places where, and the manner 

 in which her rights shall be exercised. There is no equality whatever 

 in having the subjects of Great Britain exercise their common right, 



