ARGUMENT OF MR. ROOT 117 



not mingling with the population as in case of ordinary trade and 

 travel rights, not really exercising rights in common, but exercising 

 a special kind of right as a separate class, denied real rights of 

 exercise in common; they are not permitted to use the shore as 

 British subjects can use it; they are not permitted to exercise the hb- 

 erty of fishing in common with British subjects in so far as the 

 exercise of the right of fishing involves the use of the shore for the 

 drawing of nets or the setting out of traps, the drawing of seines; 

 they are not permitted to use the shores for the purpose which 

 was mentioned by one of the counsel for Great Britain here the 

 other day as being important and serious, the disposal of the offal 

 resulting from the dressing of the fish; they are not permitted to 

 use the shore for the drying of their nets as British fishermen 

 may — for the purpose that we can see illustrated any day here 

 as we go towards the coast, by the great stretches covered with 

 nets laid out to dry. They must confine themselves to their 

 ships and their boats, and their seines or nets may rot through 

 not being dried, or they must find some way to dry them as best 

 they can on shipboard. They are excluded from the oppor- 

 tunity to employ labor as British fishermen may. They are 

 excluded from the opportimity of obtaining suppHes as British 

 fishermen may, excluded from the opportunity to procure bait 

 as British fishermen may. And in this great variety of ways 

 they are prohibited from the real common exercise of the right 

 of fishing. The inference from the fact that the right is in com- 

 mon is, in the view of Great Britain, an inference that it is to 

 be common for purposes of restriction, and not common for the 

 purposes of opportunity. 



If the Tribunal should be of the opinion that the British view 

 is correct, that the fact that this Hberty is a Hberty held in common 

 with subjects of Great Britain means or requires the inference that 

 its exercise is to be in common with the exercise of the liberty by 

 British fishermen, so that the laws or regulations or rules imposed 

 upon British fishermen may also be imposed upon American fisher- 

 men in respect of their right, then I submit that the Tribunal must 

 find also that that common quaUty extends to the opportunities 

 of British fishermen as well as to the limitations upon British 

 fishermen. 



