TERRITORIAL S       .EA                 893

  In consideration of this request the following historicaland political
facts should be borne in mind:
  1. It has been possible to maintain the principle of the Freedom
of the Seas for upwards of three hundred years only because of the
major limitation upon its effects of the concept of a band of marginal
sea which is the sovereign territory of the contiguous nation,
  2. It has been possible to maintain the concept of a narrow band
of marginal sea for more than two hundred years only because nations
have been willing from time to time to place limitations upon the
application of this concept to their relations with other particular
nations through treaties in order to alleviate specific aggravations
between or among themselves which the general application of the
concept would have advanced.
  3. One type of such limitation that has been frequently utilized by
nations, including the United States, is voluntary limitation of its
fishermen from certain areas of the high seas.3

   Strong exception was taken to this memorandum by the Bureau of Economic
Affairs, which set forth its views in an undated memorandum, not printed.
The
United States paper argued that the treaties proposed were unnecessary (domestic
political pressures were exaggerated), constituted a reversal of established
treaty policy (substituting the principle of mutual exclusion for the principle
of equal access), and would run contrary to this Government's general foreign
economic policy (by providing extreme and excessive protection to a domestic
industry). Additional reasons were advanced against concluding such a treaty
with Japan, based on the inferior international position held by the Japanese
state at that time.

711.022/9-2750
         The Secretary of State to the Embassy in Norway

CONFIDENTIAL                        [WVASmNGT0N,] October 24, 1950.
  The Secretary of State refers to the Embassy's despattch No. 556,
dated September 27, 1950,1 concerning certain questions which were
asked by an official of the Norwegian Foreign Office regarding the
United States Presidential Proclamation of September 28, 1945 on
the subject of coastalfisheeries.2 These questions are dealt with in the
order in which they appear in the Embassy's despatch.
   1. The Presidential Proclamation under reference does not repre-
sent a new concept in international law, nor does it alter in any way
the. pre-existing regime of the high seas. Unfortunately, there has
been a tendency, particularly among states in this Hemisphere, to
confound the effect of this Proclamation :by relating it to interna-
tional law,- whereas in reality the Proclamation is properly identified
as a declaration of United States fishery policy with respect to the ac-
tivities in contiguous high seas of its citizens. The right of a state to
  XNot printed.
  2For documentation on the formulation of UnitedI States policy on the
resources of the (North American) Continental Shelf and on coastal fisheries,
see Foreign Relations, 1945, vol. rU, pp. 1481 if.