298 FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE 



The position taken by Great Britain certainly was a curious one: 

 the position that the word "bays" related entirely to geographical 

 bays. Although in argument counsel have claimed that all of these 

 bays were in fact territorial, the position of Great Britain, the 

 authoritative position taken in her pleading, was not that they were 

 territorial, it was that they were geographical, and you wiU recall 

 that this led to a question by the Court. The Court asked counsel 

 of both parties to tell them whether they understood "the position 

 of Great Britain to be that under the renunciation clause of the 

 treaty of 1818 the United States fishermen have renounced the right 

 to enter bays that are non-territorial as well as those that are 

 territorial. That is to say, bays in the geographical sense of the 

 word without referring to their territoriality." 



And in answer, on behalf of the counsel for the United States, 

 I read a series of excerpts from the British Case, Counter-Case, and 

 printed Argument: 



"His Majesty's Government contend that the negotiators of the treaty 

 meant by 'bays,' all those waters which, at the time, everyone knew as bays." 



2. In the British Case, p. 103: 



"His Majesty's Government contends that the term 'bays' as used in 

 the renunciation clause of Article one, includes all tracts of water on the non- 

 treaty coasts which were known under the name of bays in 1818, and that 

 the 3 marine miles must be measured from a hne drawn between the head- 

 lands of those waters." 



They are concentrated at pp. 3900 and 3901 of the typewritten 

 copy of the Argument [pp. 642-643, supra]. 



That to me was a rather curious position. It seems to reject 

 as the basis of the British case, the case on which they stand, the 

 case on which they can be held internationally — to reject from that 

 any planting of Great Britain on the territorial character of these 

 waters. It is quite in accord with the unvarying conduct of Great 

 Britain. She never had planted herself; the Foreign Office of 

 Great Britain never did plant itself in any discussion with the United 

 States upon the proposal that these bays were territorial waters 

 of Great Britain, and she did not do so here in this case. 



Counsel may argue what they please, but the record is a record 

 in which Great Britain has scrupulously refrained from taking that 



