344 FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE 



of any express prohibition or limitation upon the part of the country 

 to which the class belongs, the intent of the grantee of the right must 

 be presimied to be that all of the class shall exercise it. 

 I will pass to Question 3. 



" Can the exercise by the inhabitants of the United States of the liberties 

 referred to in the said article be subjected, without the consent of the United 

 States, to the requirements of entry or report at custom-houses, or the pay- 

 ment of light, or harbor, or other dues, or to any other similar requirement, 

 or condition, or exaction ? " 



First, as to the requirement of entry or report at custom-house. 

 Those are two very different things. The Attorney- General was 

 not inaccurate in stating that the paper to be signed would not differ 

 very much in one case from the paper which might well be signed 

 in the other case, but "entry" and "report" are two quite distinct 

 things. 



I think it is quite appropriate that a vessel going upon the treaty 

 coast, and intending to claim the treaty right, should declare herself; 

 that if the place where she purposes to exercise the right is a place 

 where there is a custom-house, or any officer quaUfied to receive 

 a report, she should make it; or if, without interfering with the 

 exercise of the right, passing a custom-house or a place where there 

 is an official, she can make the report, that she should make it. 

 That is quite reasonable. I should take very kindly to a class of 

 regulations such as we have illustrated imder the British Treaty 

 with France of 1839. If I remember correctly, there were a series 

 of, regulations prepared a few years after that treaty. Under the 

 North Sea Convention of 1882, and many other conventions, vessels 

 are obhged to carry numbers plainly displayed. You can see the 

 numbers up here in the fishing port of Scheveningen. I believe 

 they have a sort of special flag or vane that they carry, something 

 to identify. I quite agree that it is a reasonable, sensible thing 

 that vessels going to the coast of another country to exercise a right 

 under a treaty should idjentify themselves in some appropriate way, 

 and indicate in an appropriate way to the authorities of the country 

 who they are, and what they are, and what they are there for, and 

 what the rights are that they propose to exercise. We will not 

 quarrel about that. I do not think there is really much difference 

 between the counsel on the two sides in this respect. 



