ARGUMENT OF MR. ROOT 293 



proposal to include chambers formed by headlands within maritime 

 jurisdiction of the two countries, and which led her to refrain from 

 asserting any general jurisdiction over bays, was the continuous 

 policy of the Empire, and continued throughout all this period of 

 discussion. 



That leads me to the statement made by Lord Fitzmaurice of 

 the position of the British Government in the House of Lords, on 

 the 2ist February, 1907, during the debate regarding a question 

 that had arisen upon the waters of the Moray Firth. 



You will recall that Lord Fitzmaurice, in response to a question, 

 said there: 



"I pass to the position of the Foreign Ofl&ce. The jurisdiction which 

 is exercised by a state over its merchant or trading vessels upon the high 

 seas is conceded to it in virtue of its ownership of them as property in a place 

 where no local jurisdiction exists. Therefore, the first thing that, in these 

 cases, the Foreign' Office has to ask is, Was there or was there not, territorial 

 jurisdiction in the place where the alleged events occurred ? In regard to 

 that I can certainly say that according to the views hitherto accepted by all 

 the Departments of the government chiefly concerned ! — the Foreign Office, 

 the Admiralty, the Colonial Office, the Board of Trade, and the Board of 

 Agriculture and Fisheries — and apart from the provisions of special treaties, 

 such as, for instance, the North Sea Convention, within the hmits to which 

 that instrument appKes, territorial waters are : — First, the waters which 

 extend from the coastline of any part of the territory of a state to three miles 

 from the low-water mark of such coasthne; secondly, the waters of bays the 

 entrance to which is not more than six miles in width, and of which the entire 

 land boundary forms part of the territory of a state. By custom however 

 and by Treaty and in special convention the six-mile limit has frequently 

 been extended to more than six mUes.'' 



As, for example, it had been in the North Sea Convention and 

 the treaty of 1839 with France. 



Now, that is no idle remark, it is no indifferent admission or 

 expression: it is a formal and authoritative statement by the Under- 

 Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the position of the Foreign Office 

 and the Colonial Ofl&ce, and of the other branches of the British 

 Government which have any relation to the subject-matter in 

 regard to the policy of the Empire. It was not a statement made 

 with regard to the particular interests of Canada to a particular 

 bay, or of Newfoimdland to a particular bay. It was a statement 

 of the policy of the great Empire which had interests all over the 



