3i6 FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE 



States and Great Britain on all places where they had been accus- 

 tomed to fish. The second form contained some limitations, not 

 very great; and the third form was this which I have been reading. 

 That was not agreed to, but instead of agreeing to it, that was made 

 the basis of a modification, and the next form was what came out 

 finally as the treaty. Instead of talking about the shores of the 

 Isle of Sables, and the "shores of the imsettled bays, harbors, and 

 creeks of the Magdalen Islands," and the coasts of the continent, 

 and the coasts of the islands and the coasts of Great Britain, they 

 said: 



" the people of the United States shall continue to enjoy unmolested the right 

 to take fish of every kind on the Grand Bank . . . and also that the inhab- 

 itants of the United States shall have liberty to take fish of every kind on 

 such part of the coast of Newfoundland, as British fishermen shall use, . . . 

 and also on the coasts, bays, and creeks of all other of His Britannic Majesty's 

 dominions in America, and that the American fishermen shall have hberty 

 to dry and cure fish in any of the unsettled bays, harbors, and creeks of Nova 

 Scotia, Magdalen Islands,'' etc. 



The distributive idea which is carried in this proposal, by the 

 specification of particular coasts, particular places, is carried in the 

 final form which grew out of this in the difference which the Presi- 

 dent has already called attention to, between the singular use of 

 the word "coast" and the plural "the coasts, bays, and creeks of 

 all other of His Britannic Majesty's dominions." 



The President: That was a great success of the American 

 negotiators, that they obtained all — the whole coast. 



Senator Root: Yes; it certainly was. 



The President: But I thought, Mr. Senator Root, that you 

 were referring to this passage as explaining the word "any" in the 

 treaty of 1818; and I found — 



Senator Root: No; I was referring to the treaty of 1783. 



The President: Yes. 



Senator Root: I think the use of the word "any" carries the 

 distributive idea, shows that they were thinking of these things not 

 en bloc, but as separate elements of consideration, and that it also 



