THE SEA FISHERIES OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA. 15 



Canada, on the other hand, has a special department of the fisheries, 

 organized for obtaining the necessary data, and from which we can 

 learn with great precision the number of vessels and boats, their ton- 

 nage, the men employed, with the yield of the diiferent kinds of fishing, 

 in all the districts of the several provinces constituting the Dominion. 

 The statistics of Newfoundland, which does not belong to the confeder- 

 ation, are scarcely more valuable or reliable than those of the United 

 States. It is much to be hoped that both countries will, in time, 

 initiate and carry on a system more like that of Canada, from which, 

 year by year, tabulated and final results may be obtained. 



Having been requested by the Secretary of State to proceed to Hali- 

 fax and be present daring the International Fishery Convention, I have 

 been enabled, from the testimony adduced in regard to American fish 

 and fisheries, and still more by personal inquiries of the witnesses, to 

 obtain a great deal of information of much value, a portion of which 

 will be embodied in the present report, and the remainder in an exten- 

 sion of the subject hereafter.* 



The greater portion of the statistics employed in the present report 

 is the result of special correspondence, initiated and maintained with 



*The treaty of Washington, made by the joint high commission in 1871, provided 

 that nearly all the restrictions to the unimpeded use of the fisheries by the Americana 

 on the shores of the British provinces on the Atlantic coast, and by the subjects of 

 these provinces in American waters as far south as the parallel of 39°, or Cape May, 

 should be mutually conceded, and either party was to have the privilege of exporting 

 fish other thau the products of the Great Lakes to the other country free of duty ; and 

 that a commission should meet at Halifax, to consist of a commissioner and agent for 

 each side, to determine what the commercial value respectively of these concessions 

 amounted to, and if it were found that the privileges granted to the Americans were 

 greater than those .secured by the same treaty to the Dominion, a money value should 

 be estimated for a twelve years' period and paid by the United States. It was not 

 supposed at the time that the balance might be on the other side. 



This convention was organized in obedience to the provisions of the treaty at Hali. 

 fax on the 15th of June, aud was represented by Hon. E. H. Kellogg on the part of the 

 United States, and Sir Alexander T. Gait on the part of Great Britain, the third com- 

 missioner, in accordance with the provision of the treaty, being Mr. Maurice Delfosse, 

 the minister from Belgium to the United States. Mr. Dwight Foster, of Boston, was 

 the agent for the American cause, and Mr. F. C. Ford, of London, for the British. Mr. 

 J. H. G. Bergne, of the foreign office, London, was chosen as secretary of the joint 

 convention. 



Subsequently the selection of counsel was authorized to assist the agents in their 

 labors, those for the United States being Mr. Richard H. Dana, Jr., of Boston, aud Mr. 

 William H. Trescot, of Washington ; the British counsel beiug one for each province, 

 namely: Mr. Joseph Doutre, for Canada; Mr. S. R. Thomson, for New Brunswick; 

 Mr. Wetherbe, for Nova Scotia ; Mr. Davies, for Prince Edward Island ; and Mr. White- 

 way, for Newfoundland. 



It is not my province to refer to the history and results of this convention except- 

 ing so far as relates to the testimony available for the objects of the present report . 

 Suffice it to say that a vast body of testimony was taken on both sides, much of it 

 contradictory, but leaving a residuum of well-established fact, and that this was 

 supplemented by personal inquiries and special conference with the most intelligent 

 witnesses. 



