332 FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE 



any number of future provisions which the ingenuity of Newfound- 

 land legislation might devise, and which it would be impossible to 

 forecast, it was manifest, as a preliminary to an intelligent discus- 

 sion, that we must ascertain whether, quite independently of all 

 these laws, under the treaty the United States vessel owner was 

 at hberty to employ anybody who was not an inhabitant of the 

 United States; because if he is not at hberty to employ anybody who 

 is not an inhabitant of the United States, then we cannot object 

 to any of these things. We cannot discuss them. That Hes at the 

 threshold of the discussion of any of these statutes. We cannot 

 call Great Britain to account for making a statute prohibiting 

 British subjects from going into our crews, or fishing from our 

 ships, unless the treaty right includes employing non-inhabitants. 

 We cannot call her to account for prohibiting Germans and French 

 and Dutch from fishing from our ships unless, under the treaty, 

 we can employ non-inhabitants. If, under the treaty, we carmot 

 employ a non-inhabitant, we are cut off from, discussing any of 

 these questions. And therefore we have put here this preliminary 

 question, asking you to decide it for us, and all these other questions 

 we shall have to take care of, and there will be no serious difficulty 

 about taking care of them, when we come to consider them with 

 Great Britain in the Hght of whatever your award may be upon the 

 question that is now asked here. And if there is any danger that 

 your answer to this question may conclude either country upon any 

 one of these other questions, this other great and indefinite range of 

 possible questions relating to the effect of statutes and the right of 

 people to accept employment, why it is perfectly simple, and the 

 only practical way is to say that your award upon this question 

 does not pass upon the effect of any statutes regarding the sub- 

 jects of any country. That, certainly, is a much more practical 

 way of disposing of the subject than it is to try to decide all these 

 questions, the material for deciding which is not before yoa, and 

 the reasons for deciding which one way or another have not been 

 argued before you. 



Let us pass to the question as we take it to be. 



Sir Charles Fitzpatrick: Before you leave that, may I ask 

 you a question? I understand you to say that it was not the 



