I am aware that in the Constitution we are taking over these things but I do want that it should be made absolutely clear. I would refer to one important case recently decided by the Supreme Court of America on June 23rd, 1947. The case was United States vs. California. In that case, they had found some very valuable quantities of oil and gas underneath the land near California. The case went to Supreme Court and although the majority of the Court were in favour of the United States, two judges, Justices Reed and Frankfurter were against it. I think it is a very important thing that this right of the Union should be absolutely above suspicion. I would quote a paragraph from that judgment :
“The very oil about which the State and Nation here contend might well become the subject of international dispute and settlement. The ocean, even its three-mile belt in this of vital consequence to the nation in its desire to engage in commerce and to live in peace with the world; it also becomes of crucial importance should it ever again become impossible to preserve that peace. And as peace and world commerce are the paramount responsibilities of the nation, rather than an individual State so if wars come, they must be fought by the nation. The State is not equipped in our constitutional system with the powers or the facilities for exercising the responsibilities which would be concomitant with the dominion which it seeks. Conceding that the State has been authorized to exercise local police power functions in the part of the marginal belt within its declared boundaries, these do not detract from the Federal Government’s paramount rights in and power over this area. Consequently, we are not persuaded to transplant the Pollard rule of ownership as an incident of State sovereignty in relation to inland waters out into the soil beneath the ocean, so much more a matter of national concern.“