With regard to the other questions of sovereignty or exclusive rights in the seas washing the coasts of a country, it is becoming more and more recognised that there is no reason in nature why the boundary for one purpose should be the boundary for all purposes. Just as the three-mile limit is now obsolete in respect to belligerents and neutrals in time of war, so is it inadequate in all cases with regard to the protection and preservation of the sea fisheries. In the concluding chapters of this book it is shown that all recent inquiries by Parliament into the condition of the fisheries, especially of the North Sea, have resulted in proving the inadequacy of the present limit for fishery regulations, and in recommendations that the subject should be dealt with internationally by the various countries concerned. SECTION I. THE HISTORY OF THE CLAIMS TO THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA CHAPTER I. EARLY HISTORY. When the claim of the English crown to the sovereignty of the British seas became a question of international importance in the early part of the seventeenth century, the records of history and the treasures of ancient learning were searched for evidence to establish its antiquity. Some of the greatest lawyers and scholars of the time took part in the task, and they were not always content with the endeavour to prove that the claim was in conformity with the laws of England as an old heritage of the crown, but they tried to trace it back to a remote past. Selden, who was incomparably the ablest and most illustrious champion of the English pretension, as well as Boroughs and Prynne and other writers of lesser note, laboured with more or less erudition and ingenuity to show that the British dominion in the adjoining seas was anterior to the Roman occupation. From the ancient Britons it was supposed to have passed to the Roman conquerors as part and parcel of the British empire, and to have been exercised by them during their possession of the island.[14] It is unnecessary to discuss the evidence and arguments for these contentions. They are for the most part drawn from scattered passages or even phrases in the writings of classical authors, to which a strained and improbable significance was assigned. An example may be given from Selden, who, in referring to the well-known passage in Solinus[15] in which Irish warriors are described as decking the hilts of their swords with the tusks of sea-beasts (walrus), first tries to show that the passage applied also to the Britons, and then argues that there must have been a great fishing and a large number of fishermen to provide sufficient material, the conclusion being that the British seas were “occupied” by navigation and fishing. In reality the walrus tusks came by barter from the north, and there is little or no evidence to show that the ancient Britons fished for anything except salmon. At the utmost it may be said that the Romans were masters of the British