174 FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE 



a statement of their views of this right in the article which they had proposed; 

 but they desired to be imderstood, as in no degree abandoning the ground 

 upon which the right to the fishery had been claimed by the government 

 of the United States, and only waiving discussion of it, upon the principle 

 that, that right was not to be hmited in any way, which should exclude the 

 United States from a fair participation in the advantages of the fishery: They 

 added that while they could not but regard the propositions made to the, 

 government of the United States by Mr. Bagot as altogether inadmissible, 

 inasmuch as they restricted the American fishing to a Mne of coast so limited 

 as to exclude them from this fair participation, they had nevertheless been 

 anxious in securing to themselves an adequate extent of coast, to guard against 

 the inconveniences which they imderstood to constitute the leading objec- 

 tion to the unlimited exercise of their fishing. With this view they had 

 contented themselves with requiring a further extent of coast in those very 

 quarters which Great Britain had pointed out, because it appeared to them 

 that the very small population estabHshed in that quarter, and the unfitness 

 of the soil for cultivation, rendered it improbable that any conduct of the 

 American fishermen in that quarter could either give rise to disputes with 

 the inhabitants, or to injuries to the revenue." 



So you will see that the proposal for joint regulation, made and 

 accepted, under which these joint regulations were proposed to be 

 put into the treaty, was laid aside in favor of a plan which involved 

 pushing the United States right off on to a wild and uninhabited 

 coast, where it was not necessary to have any regulations; where 

 there could not be any colUsions, for there was nobody to colKde 

 with; where there could not be any smugghng, for there was nobody 

 there to smuggle to, as indeed all these coasts were in the year 1818; 

 and where, the soil being xmfit for cultivation, there was no proba- 

 bility that in the future there would be any such population as to 

 make it necessary for the negotiators at that time, in 1818, to bother 

 their heads about joint regulations. 



The Attorney-General: May I detain the Tribunal for one 

 moment ? I should like to draw attention to one point raised by 

 Mr. Root. I think I should do it at once, instead of waiting until 

 the end of his speech and then asking permission to lay it before the 

 Tribunal. 



Mr. Root thought I had been mistaken in saying that the 

 opinion expressed by the law officers of Newfoundland in 1854, 

 1 think, as to the absence of local regulation at that time, was a 

 correct opinion; and he pointed out that the earlier legislation 



