ARGUMENT OF MR. ROOT 



131 



by the declaration of His Majesty respecting the Island of St. Helena, are 

 hereby extended and continued in force for the term of ten years from the 

 date of the signature of the present convention, in the same manner as if all 

 the' provisions of the said convention were herein specially recited." 



This reference to the declaration regarding the Island of St. 

 Helena refers to the very clause of the treaty of 181 5 from which I 

 have read to you the' express reservation of the right of municipal 

 regulation. 



So here you have in this treaty the same men -who made the 

 treaty of 1815 and who put into it the express reservation of the 

 right of municipal regulation, re-enacting it here -with that clause 

 and at the same time granting this right to the United States for 

 its inhabitants to enter upon the territory of Great Britain and 

 subject it to their use — this right which Lord Bathurst has already 

 called in the letter, which was the cornerstone of the negotiation 

 resulting in the treaty, the right of an independent nation to enter 

 and use at its discretion the territory of Great Britain, and they do 

 not apply any reservation to that right. 



I say it is quite incredible that they should have refrained from 

 following the custom — following their own custom — following 

 the custom that obtained between the two countries employing 

 the same familiar expression which they themselves had employed 

 in the treaty they were re-enacting in regard to trade and travel 

 rights, if they intended or dreamed of the idea that this right in 

 the territory of Great Britain conveyed in Article i was to be 

 subject to such regulation. 



The President: Please, sir, was it not necessary to make, in 

 the Treaty of Commerce for instance in 181 5, a distinct dis- 

 position concerning the exception of foreigners? Was it not at 

 that time, and I beheve still in some of the states of the United 

 States and, if I am not wrong, in Great Britain also, the rule that 

 foreigners cannot acquire landed property, and was it not neces- 

 sary to make this exception? If this exception had not been 

 made, then foreigners could have claimed the right to be propri- 

 etors of land. I believe if I am not quite wrong, in the year 181 5 

 neither the laws of Great Britain nor the laws of the United 

 States admitted in general foreigners to be proprietors of land, 



