28 



of reciprocity that will give us these fisheries is nonsense. Now these 

 people are willing that our vessels should come and employ them to 

 take these fish for us. They are desirous to welcome our people on 

 these terms. It is the only method by which this fishery can be pur- 

 sued. There has been a continued, persistent effort on the part of 

 some of the Department officials to classif}' the entire herring fishery 

 as a commercial transaction, liable to all the restrictions and expen- 

 ses attending a foreign voyage. In fact one decision imperatively 

 demanded that every vessel leaving an American port to go for her- 

 ring, should sail under a register, forgetting that the treaty gave to 

 American vessels the same rights in British waters, so far as the tak- 

 ing of fish is concerned, as they had in our own, and that the meth- 

 ods employed could not be called in question by either government, 

 as defined in Mr. Evarts' position on the Fortune Bay question, that 

 treat}' rights were superior to local laws on either side. Now, treat}' 

 or no treaty, we have to abide by natural laws for the herring fishery, 

 and the question to be settled is, how far herring, procured by the only 

 method possible, shall be recognized as the product of the American 

 fisheries if taken in this manner and brought to our markets by Ameri- 

 can vessels. The present Hon. Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Mc- 

 Culloch, during his former administration, sent to Messrs. Hall & 

 Myrick, American merchants at Charlottetown, Prince Edw'd Island, 

 a letter explanatory of this clause of the tariff, in which fish cured on 

 an American vessel under the American flag constituted a product of 

 the American fisheries under the law. I had the letter in my posses- 

 sion and I think it was forwarded to Gen. Butler while he represent- 

 ed this District. It is not among the printed decisions of the Depart- 

 ment. I make these statements in order to show that there is neces- 

 sit}* to have our own legislation and the action of our own govern- 

 ment right, in order that the American fisheries can have their full- 

 est development. 



If there were not such serious consequences involved, it would be 

 amusing to see our Canadian neighbors, who twelve years ago were 

 frantic over the immense value of their inshore fisheries, now so ter- 

 tibby anxious lest some form of compromise should fail to give them 

 our markets and confessing that all the mone}* they ever made was 

 during reciprocity. The present statement has the merit of truth, 

 and the fact that so long as the American fisheries exist and have 



