6o The Fishery Question. 



fished out their own waters ; that licenses 

 were discontinued because the Americans did 

 not care to buy them ; that the.system of giv- 

 ing warnings had to be discontinued as they 

 were not regarded, and that it was exceed- 

 ingly difificult to discover interlopers in the 

 bays. Also that three-fourths of the mack- 

 erel catch was taken within the three-mile 

 limit, and that the cost of the cruisers and 

 the protection of the home industry war- 

 ranted a strict interpretation and enforcement 

 of the convention of 1818. 



Four hundred vessels were boarded for 

 transgressing the three-mile limit. Fifteen 

 were condemned, and one Canadian cruiser 

 spent the winter of 1871 in the Bay of 

 Fundy, thus saving, according to the Do- 

 minion reports, fifty thousand dollars' worth 

 of fish to the natives. Canadian trade de- 

 clined after 1866 more rapidly than it had 

 increased during the treaty. A convention 

 of Canadian merchants was held with the 

 object of finding an outlet for colonial prod- 

 ucts in the West Indies.''^ The prospect was 

 not satisfactory. Reciprocity again became 

 the object of the Dominion Government. 

 There were now a number of claims waitinof 



