288 



lawful end." I am defending the rights of men in peace. I am 

 asking ix)Y a free sea when our fishermen are bound to and from the 

 distant scenes of their toil. I assume that they neither loiter nor 

 traffic; that they violate no municipal law; and that in no other way 

 do they harm or molest her Mnjcsty's subjects. Perhaps the eminent 

 jurist, who is quoted so triumphantly against them, will sustain my de- 

 fence. We shall see. "Every vessel in time of peace," says the 

 same Chancellor Kent, "has a right to consult its own safety and con- 

 venience, and to pursue its own course and business, without being 

 disturbed, and without having violated the rights of others." Again, 

 he says: "As the end of the law of nations is the happiness and per- 

 fection of the general society of mankind, it enjoins upon every nation 

 the punctual observance of benevolence and good will, as well as of 

 justice, towards its neighbors. This is equq^lly the poHcy and the duty 

 of nations." Still again: "No nation has a right, in time of peace, to 

 interfere with, or interrupt, any commerce which is lawful b}'' the law 

 of nations, and carried on between other independent powers, or be- 

 tween diHerent members of the same state." Nor is this all. " Every 

 nation is bound, in time of jieace, to grant a jiassage, for lauf id purposes, 

 over their lands, rivers, and seas, to the people of other states, whenever it 

 can he permitted without incoiiveniencey* Let us apply these principles 

 to the case before us. In passing through Canso, our fishermen consult 

 their "safety and convenience." They promote the "happiness" of 

 mankind, for they are producers of human food. Their " purpose is 

 lawful," for the crown lawyers themselves admit that the right of fishing 

 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence is secured to them. 



A report on Canso has become a regular legislative duty in the 

 Assembly of Nova Scotia. The little colonial world will soon be grat- 

 ified with another labored effort to show that our countr3nnen have " no 

 right to pass through one of her Majesty's possessions." I commend 

 to the committee of 1853 the passages which I have quoted, and which 

 relate to the duties of nations in time of peace. I have the presump- 

 tion, too, to suggest to the Queen's advocate, and her Majestj^'s attorney 

 general, that though Selden was among the lights of" his age, and 

 though his Marc Claimim was once high authority, 3^et that since the 

 progress of civilization has modified some, and changed other, rules of 

 mternational law, it is time that the old and barbarous doctrine of 

 exclusion from the navigation of internal straits between the main land 

 and islands, as applied to vessels under sail, and making a direct 

 voyage, ceased to distress the mariners of one Christian country when 

 within the jurisdiction of another. Two centuries ago,t when Selden, 

 and his great antagonist, Grotius, wrote their celebr.ated treatises, it 

 was the practice, under the pulilic law, to confiscate the debts due to 

 the subjects of an (;n(uny at the commencement of hostilities; to regard 

 an enemy as an outlaw and as a criminal, who liad no right to Hfe, even 

 when unarmed and defenceless; to use poisoned weapons, employ 

 assassins, violate females, and sell prisoners into slavery ; and to con- 

 fiscate, as contraband, provisions when in transitu to feed starving non- 



* Those sovoral quotations are from Kent, edition of 1832, pages 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, aud 34. 

 t Selden died iu 1G54 ; Grotius in 1045. 



