286 FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE 



It is a mistake to look upon the questions that we have here in 

 the light only of Canadian or Nova Scotian or Newfoundland 

 interests. They were part of a great world-wide empire, and the 

 pohcy that Great Britain followed was the poHcy of the empire. 

 My learned friend has drawn a picture of the inconvenience, the 

 danger, the alarm which would be created by permitting the shelter 

 of a fleet of war-ships in Chaleur or Miramichi — in any of the 

 bays of these dominions. True, that is the Canadian view; a 

 natural view for the inhabitants of these colonies. But how con- 

 venient for the war-ships ! How necessary, perhaps, to their opera- 

 tions, on which the fate of empire might depend. That is the 

 British view. Great Britain was needing sheltering bays on every 

 sea, and therefore the poUcy of empire required that Great Britain 

 should resist the urgency of the United States to withdraw from 

 the general use of navies of the world, and appropriate to special 

 jurisdiction the chambers within headlands, and a broad strip of 

 territorial zone. That is why England made no claim and acceded 

 to no proposal for the appropriation of these bodies of water. 

 Justice requires me to assert that in those early days Great Britain 

 never neglected the duty of claiming what she wanted. She re- 

 frained from claiming jurisdiction over Fundy and Chaleur and 

 Miramichi and Placentia and Fortune Bays because, more than 

 she wanted that jurisdiction, she wanted to be free from the juris- 

 diction of other nations upon other bays all over the world. 



I now pass to the proposition that Great Britain has always 

 maintained the same policy and does to this day. 



Sir Charles Fitzpatrick: Was not the doctrine of the King's 

 Chambers essentially an Enghsh doctrine ? 



Senator Root: Ah, yes, it was essentially an Enghsh doctrine. 

 In the early times, when nations were isolated and protecting 

 themselves against the others, then arose the doctrine of the King's 

 Chambers; then arose these claims to sovereignty over closed seas. 

 But, with the new era of commercial freedom, which began 

 in that wonderful period when, within the space of a few 

 years, Columbus discovered America, and Vasco da Gama rounded 

 the Cape, in the era when Grotius wrote the "Mare Liberum"; 

 when great commercial nations arose, and England became the 



