I40 FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE 



that Great Britain would want to regulate the fisheries. She was 

 not regulating the French fisheries. Why should it be supposed 

 that she would expect to regulate the American fisheries upon the 

 same coast? There stands that great concrete fact which the 

 negotiators could not ignore, and we cannot ignore, excluding any 

 possible idea of an implied reservation or of an intention that there 

 should be a reservation of the right to regulate : 



The President: May I ask one question, Mr. Senator Root, 

 concerning the British conception of the French right? Was it 

 necessary for the British Government to make any regulation con- 

 cerning the exercise of the French right ? In fact, they had recog- 

 nized the exclusiveness of the French right. May I draw your 

 attention to the last few words of section i of the British statute 

 of 1788, which is the statute concerning the treaty with France, 

 British Case Appendix, p. 561 ? I read four lines from the top 

 of p. 563 : 



"also all ships, vessels, and boats, belonging to His Majesty's subjects, which 

 shall be found within the limits aforesaid, and also, in case of refusal to depart 

 from within the limits aforesaid, to compel any of His Majesty's subjects 

 to depart from thence; any law, usage, or custom, to the contrary notwith- 

 standing." 



Does it not follow from this statute that the British Government 

 considered that British subjects had no right on that coast at all, 

 and that, therefore, they had no reason to make regulations con- 

 cerning that coast; whereas, with respect to the American fishery 

 right, which was to be exercised in common by American and 

 British subjects, there might be reason for the British Government 

 to regulate ? 



Senator Root: That strengthens my argument, Mr. Presi- 

 dent, which is, that having before them the example of the French 

 right, under which they had been compelled to abandon the prac- 

 tical concurrent use, or common use, and under which the effect 

 of the grant had been wholly to exclude them from applying their 

 laws and regulations to the French right, if they did not want such 

 a result to happen under the grant to the Americans the British 

 would, of course, have put in an express provision to prevent it 

 from happening. My proposition is that the presence of this great 



