264 FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE 



treaty. Plainly the government of Great Britain had discovered 

 that that opinion was built on sand, and the opinion had fallen in 

 the estimation of the Foreign Office; and we have here a statement 

 that the Foreign Office had prepared and communicated to the 

 Colonial Office, at the head of which Lord Stanley was, an ex- 

 amination and exposition of the subject. He says: 



"I transmit to your Lordship herewith a copy of a letter which I have 

 received from the Foreign Office on the subject." 



That is to say, having the matter sharply presented by the 

 demand for reparation for the seizure of the "Washington" and 

 the "Argus," the Foreign Office took the subject up in earnest, 

 examined it, found that the opinion of the Law Officers of the 

 Crown, upon which Nova Scotia had been proceeding, was not 

 worth the paper it was written on, because it was based upon an 

 erroneous assumption as to the terms of the treaty, came to the 

 conclusion that the construction which is now contended for by 

 the United States was the correct construction of the treaty, com- 

 municated that fact, with the reasons, to the Colonial Office, and 

 the Colonial Office advised the Governor of Nova Scotia in this 

 letter that the government of Great Britain had determined to 

 regard as bays, in the sense of the treaty, only those inlets of the 

 sea which measure from headland to headland, at their entrance, 

 double the distance of 3 miles. 



The government of Great Britain was driven back from giving 

 effect to that conclusion by the protest that came from Nova Scotia, 

 based upon the interests of the colony. 



Nevertheless, we have of record that deliberate, reasoned, 

 matured decision of the government of Great Britain as to the 

 meaning of the renunciation clause in this treaty. 



Motives of policy affecting their colony prevented them from 

 giving effect to their decision, but the decision remains as authority 

 for us in our consideration of the question. 



There are two or three other communications from Great 

 Britain which serve to mark the outUnes of the subject and define 

 the question, which I should be very glad to have you consider — 

 a letter from Lord Kimberley to Lord Lisgar of the i6th February, 

 1871, p. 636 of the American Appendix. 



