Page:United States Reports, Volume 209.djvu/504

 478 OCTOBEE TEEM, 1907. Opinion of the Court 209U. 8. regulating the fisheries on the west of the middle of said waters, providing that navigation be not obstructed or hindered. The other articles need but brief mention. Article IV gives New York "exclusive jurisdiction" over the waters of the Kill van Kull "in respect o such quarantine laws and laws relating to passengers &c. and for executing the same," and over certain other waters. Article V gives New Jersey exclusive jurisdiction over certain other waters subject to New York's exclusive property and exclusive jurisdiction over wharves, docks and improvements within certain limits, and exclusive right of regulating the fisheries on its side, as above in the case of New Jersey. Articles VI and VII provide for the service of criminal and civil process of each State on the waters within the exclusive jurisdiction of the other. Article VIII and last calls for the confirnmtion of the agreemcnt by the two States and approval by the Congress of the United States. Thus the land which has been taxed is on the New Jersey side of the boundary line but under the "exclusive jurisdiction" of New York, subject to the exclusive right of property in New Jersey and the limited jurisdiction and authority conferred by the paragraphs summed up. The question is which of these provisions governs the right to tax. It appears to us plain on the face of the agreement that the dominant fact is the estab- lishment of the boundary line. The boundary line is the line of sovereignty, and the establishment of it is not satisfied but is contradicted by the suggestion that the agreement simply gives the ownership of the land under water on the New Jersey side to that State as a private owner of land lying within the State of New York. On the contrary, the provision as to ex- clusive right of property in the compacg between States is to be taken primarily to refcr to ultimate sovereign rights, in pursuance of the settlement of the territorial limits, which was declared to be one purpose of the agreement, and is not to be confined to the assertion and recognition of a private claim, which, for all hat appears, may have been inconsistent with titles already accrued and which would lose significance the

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