124 FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE 



are dealing, it would have been, because there had not then devel- 

 oped what has been developed now, a universal recognition of a 

 right — an imperfect right, to be sure; a right subject to the power 

 of exception and withdrawal — but a universal right on the part of 

 all mankind to free intercourse, travel, and trade. The growth 

 of the principle of free intercourse and universal trade is a thing of 

 recent years; and now there are two things to be considered regard- 

 ing the exercise of such rights, though incorporated in a treaty. 

 One is that the enjoyment of the rights is practically necessarily , 

 subordinate to municipal regulation, because the enjo)maent is 

 through the instrumentality of private persons. When one comes 

 to reside, he must get a place to reside. He gets a private title, 

 he buys a house or hires a house; he secures a room in a hotel, 

 and what he gets is the private title, and that of course is a title 

 subordinate to all the laws and regulations of the country. When 

 he trades he makes contracts, and the person with whom he makes 

 the contract is of course subordinate, and the making of the contract 

 must be in accordance with the laws of the country within which 

 the trading is done. So that practically the substantial enjoyment 

 of rights of trade and travel is necessarily subordinate to laws and 

 regulations. And there is no really practical subject-matter upon 

 which the question that we are considering can arise. The other 

 thing to be said is that now these treaties are merely a recognition 

 of an existing rule and right which is accorded without treaty to 

 all mankind. We none of us produced any passports coming here. 

 We got at large through the civihzed world, and except it be some 

 particular country which has a special principle of exclusion for 

 some class, and which wishes always to scrutinize for the purpose 

 of determining whether we belong to that class, we are exercising 

 the general right of modern civilization, which is recognized generally 

 as being for the benefit of all nations, and which no nation can afford 

 to deny, because the principle of commercial intercourse has taken 

 the place of the principle of isolation. And, really, putting such 

 a right into a treaty now is nothing more than practically a recog- 

 nition of the fact, a formal recognition of the fact, that the two 

 countries are on terms of peace and amity, which the inhabitants 

 may freely enjoy, and that there is no barrier to their exercise of 

 the general rights which obtain in all civilized countries. Such a 



