The Fishery Question. 67 



nial interpretation of the fishery clauses of a 

 treaty, as well as to mark the discrepancy 

 between public and municipal law. 



Treaty obligations were acknowledged to 

 be supreme, but the question arose whether 

 regulations, affecting both parties alike, were 

 admissible. 



Lord Salisbury took the ground, that the 

 fishery rights were bought subject to existing 

 regulations. Mr. Evarts contended that in 

 such a case the rights were worthless, and the 

 duty on Canadian fish should be revived to 

 reimburse the sufferers by this particular act 

 of violence. Lord Granville, who succeeded 

 Lord Salisbury when the liberal government 

 came in, conceded that local laws, in variance 

 with Imperial treaty obligations, should be 

 repealed as a matter of international obliga- 

 tion. 



He objected to the theory that would 

 make American fishermen wholly free from 

 restraints, and defined the right to fish " in 

 common " as existing under reasonable local 

 regulations. 



The British Government paid seventy- 

 five thousand dollars damages for the af- 

 fair at Fortune Bay, and an agreement was 



