the Hudson's Bay Company. The waters in side of Hudson's Straits are not mentioned in the treaty. The natural inference from this would be that the Americans recognized the existence of those exclusive rights and are debarred from now calling them in question. The several questions then which must be faced in dealing with this matter are, first: Had the British Government the right to treat the waters of Hudson's Bay as marc clausum, and therefore to confer upon the Hudson's Bay Company the sole trade and traffic of Hudson's Bay? If that can be es tablished no further argument is necessary. Again by the treaty of 1818 did not the Americans recognize that right? If so, are they not precluded from now calling in question the sovereignty of Canada in these waters? Taking the first point into consideration, the nearest approach that we can find to a parallel case is that of Conception Bay in Newfoundland—a sheet of water forty or fifty miles long, and over twenty miles wide at its mouth. In Direct United States Cable v. Anglo-American Telegraph Company, 2 App. Cas. 394 (1877) it was held, on appeal to the Privy Council, that this- bay was a British Bay, and a part of the territorial wat ers of Newfoundland, in opposition to the contention that the bay was part of the open sea, and not marc dausum. . . . Evidently, there must be some other and wider principle upon which the claim to jurisdiction over land-locked waters by the Power owning the coast surrounding them must be founded than the precise width of the entering channel. In the Conception Bay case this was found in the undisputed sovereignty exer cised for many years by the British Govern ment. In a case arising from the seizure of a ship in Delaware Bay the entrance to which is more than six miles in width, the United States Courts held the seizure to be illegal as the waters of the bay were neutral, the shores on both sides being part of the territory of the United States. Great as is the extent of Hudson's Bay, it is as
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completely a "British Sea" as was the Black Sea a Turkish sea before the Russians obtained a share in its coasts; and wide as is the channel leading into it, it is in no sense a highway of nations, or a road for commerce, as are the Dardanelles, the Straits of Gibraltar, or the Sound leading to the Baltic. It is not so now, and nature for bids it ever becoming so. Closing the Hud son's Straits would be no hindrance to com merce, or inconvenience to travel. It would be a matter of as purely domestic concern as would be the closing of the channels lead ing from Lake Huron to the Georgian Bay. The width of the straits, therefore, no more affects British rights in Hudson's Bay than does the width of the mouth of Chesapeake or Delaware Bays effect the rights which the Government of the United States claims in those by no means land-locked waters. The American Lawyer for February prints in full Professor William C. Morey's ad dress, delivered before the Rochester Bar Association, on International Right of Way, in which the recent action of the Administration in the Panama matter is up held. The conclusions which Professor Morey draws from his discussion of the moral and legal relation of sovereign States are these: 1. That the jurisdiction of a nation is morally, but not therefore legally, qualified by the commercial rights and interests of other nations. 2. That the international right of way over the natural lines of commerce situated within the territory of sovereign States—al though based upon principles of natural jus tice—has become legalized only so far as it has been sanctioned by treaty' stipulations. 3. That there is legally recognized at present no international right of eminent domain, whereby the territorial rights of a State may be forcibly appropriated without its own consent. 4. That the policy of a nation to use its influence through diplomatic and other legal measures to open necessary lines of com merce through the territory of other States
