AWARD OF THE TRIBUNAL 501 



is not only entitled, but obliged, to provide for the protection and preservation of the 

 fisheries; always remembering that the exercise of this right of legislation is limited 

 by the obligation to execute the Treaty in good faith. This has been admitted by 

 counsel and recognized by Great Britain in limiting the right of regulation to that of 

 reasonable regulation. The inherent defect of this limitation of reasonableness, with- 

 out any sanction except in diplomatic remonstrance, has been supplied by the submis- 

 sion to arbitral award as to existing regulations in accordance with Arts. II and III 

 of the Special Agreement, and as to further regulation ' by the obligation to submit 

 their reasonableness to an arbitral test in accordance with Art. IV of the Agreement. 



It is finally contended by the United States: 



That the United States did not expressly agree that the liberty granted to them 

 could be subjected to any restriction that the grantor might choose to impose on the 

 ground that in her judgment such restriction was reasonable. And that while admit- 

 ting that all laws of a general character, controlling the conduct of men within the terri- 

 tory of Great Britain, are effective, binding and beyond objection by the United 

 States, and competent to be made upon the sole determination of Great Britain or 

 her colony, without accountability to anyone whomsoever; yet there is somewhere a 

 line, beyond which it is not competent for Great Britain to go, or beyond which she 

 cannot rightfully go, because to go beyond it would be an invasion of the right granted 

 to the United States in 1818. That the legal effect of the grant of 1818 was not to 

 leave the determination as to where that line is to be drawn to the uncontrolled judg- 

 ment of the grantor, either upon the grantor's consideration as to what would be a 

 reasonable exercise of its sovereignty over the British Empire, or upon the grantor's 

 consideration of what would be a reasonable exercise thereof towards the grantee. 



But this contention is founded on assumptions, which this Tribunal cannot accept 

 for the following reasons in addition to those already set forth: 



(a) Because the hue by which the respective rights of both Parties accruing out of 

 the Treaty are to be circumscribed, can refer only to the right granted by the Treaty; 

 that is to say to the liberty of taking, drying and curing fish by American inhabitants 

 in certain British waters in common with British subjects, and not to the exercise of 

 rights of legislation by Great Britain not referred to in the Treaty; 



(ft) Because a line which would limit the exercise of sovereignty of a State within 

 the limits of its own territory can be drawn only on the ground of express stipulation, 

 and not by implication from stipulations concerning a different subject-matter; 



(c) Because the line in question is drawn according to the principle of international 

 law that treaty obligations are to be executed in perfect good faith, therefore excluding 

 the right to legislate at will concerning the subject-matter of the Treaty, and limiting 

 the exercise of sovereignty of the States bound by a treaty with respect to that subject- 

 matter to such acts as are consistent with the treaty; 



{d) Because on a true construction of the Treaty the question does not arise whether 

 the United States agreed that Great Britain should retain the right to legislate with 

 regard to the fisheries in her own territory; but whether the Treaty contains an abdi- 

 cation by Great Britain of the right which Great Britain, as the sovereign power, 

 undoubtedly possessed when the Treaty was made, to regulate those fisheries; 



(e) Because the right to make reasonable regulations, not inconsistent with the 

 obligations of the Treaty, which is all that is claimed by Great Britain, for a fishery 

 which both Parties admit requires regulation for its preservation, is not a restriction 

 of or an invasion of the liberty granted to .the inhabitants of the United States. This 

 grant does not contain words to justify the assumption that the sovereignty of Great 



