I go FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE 



Senator Root: Precisely, so that the idea of non-discrimination 

 is an illusion, it is a form, it is not a reality in any sense whatever. 

 As opposed to aU this evidence, there is not one word coming from 

 these negotiators during the entire course of this negotiation to 

 show that anyone having anything to do with the negotiation for a 

 moment conceived the idea that there was reason to imply a right 

 of municipal legislation to limit and restrict the exercise of this 

 treaty right. 



I now pass to the construction placed upon this treaty by the 

 parties when the treaty has been made. I shall, I think, show that 

 for sixty years after the making of the treaty both governments 

 treated it in accordance with the view which I have imputed to 

 the negotiators of the treaty. The first thing done under the treaty 

 was the passing of the Act of 1819, which appears in the United 

 States Case Appendix at p. 112. I need not dwell very long upon 

 that, further than to say what, I think, has already been said, that 

 the Act neither provides for nor contemplates any regulation of the 

 right of fishing. It does expressly provide that His Majesty, with 

 the advice of the Privy Council, may 



"Make such Regulations, and to give such Directions, Orders and Instruc- 

 tions to the Governor of Newfoundland, or to any Officer or Officers on that 

 Station, or to any other person or persons whomsoever, as shall or may be 

 from time to time deemed proper and necessary for the carrying into Effect 

 the Purposes of the said Convention.'' 



Of course the other person or persons are persons to whom it is 

 competent for the King in Council to give orders, persons whose 

 position would enable them to exercise an influence on giving effect 

 to the treaty provisions. On the other hand, the Act vests in His 

 Majesty in Council and in the Governor or person exercising the 

 office of Governor, in such parts of His Majesty's dominions in 

 America as are covered by the renunciatory clause, the power to 

 make regulations under that clause. 



The first step taken by the British Government after the treaty 

 is a step which does not contemplate regulating the American ex- 

 ercise of the American right of fishing, but does contemplate giving 

 effect to that right and regulating the right of vessels on the non- 

 treaty coasts. The next step was the Order-in-Coimcil of the 19th 



