146 FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE 



Proclamations were succeeded by statutes and were superseded by 

 statutes and had been superseded by statutes long before these 

 treaties were made; and in the printed Memorandum which the 

 United States has handed in your Honors will see that we have 

 arranged these statutes and proclamations under the heads of the 

 colonies to which they relate: Newfoundland by itself; Nova Scotia 

 by itself; New Brunswick by itself; Lower Canada by itself. 



Judge Gray: That is the arrangement of the British Memo- 

 randum, is it not? 



Senator Root: No, they put all before 1783 in a series, con- 

 taining all the countries, and then they put all between 1783 and 

 1818 in a series, and then all after that in a series, so when you come 

 to read them there is a confusion of statutes with reference to their 

 territorial application. 



As an appendix to this paper we insert an extract from a deci- 

 sion of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland in the year 1820, passing 

 upon the vaUdity and effectiveness of one of these proclamations 

 which is printed in the British Case Appendix, and deciding that 

 the proclamations had not the force and effect of law. They are 

 gone. They are disposed of, as would naturally be the case. They 

 are in their nature but preliminaries to the establishment of gov- 

 ernment, and when a governor has made a proclamation, and 

 afterwards the legislative body comes and covers the subject 

 by its enactment, of course that takes the place of the previous 

 proclamation. 



Many of these proclamations were made during the intervals of 

 possession, which was afterwards given up by Great Britain to 

 France, and of course sovereignty or possession changing, the 

 proclamation in the previous occupation went by the board. 



Sir Charles Fitzpatrick: That would not apply to proclama- 

 tions issued under statute, by authority of statute. 



Senator Root: No, it would not. 



Now, I will refer to the regulation of fishing in Newfoundland. 

 I will not detain you by going into all these details, because you 

 have them in print. I will state merely the conclusions which I 

 draw from them, and I hope you will not find that I have beeil 



