220 



CONGRESS. (THE FISHERIES TREATY.) 



nation ever dreamed of closing it. It lies on 

 this map here. Jt is the highway between 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Atlantic 

 Ocean. "We have the right secured to us since 

 1783, ours to-day, around the Magdalen Isl- 

 ands, rights on the easterly shores of the 

 gulf, and certainly we have rights in the 

 broad Atlantic Ocean, and this strait is the 

 open highway connecting our rights in the 

 ocean and our rights in the bay. I say it 

 never was closed, and no one ever dreamed of 

 closing it. 



" "When a United States fishing-vessel, under 

 the Treaty of 1818, puts into a harbor or bay 

 for shelter she need not report and enter ! Is 

 not that an immense privilege to be granted to 

 us ? There can not be found in the history of 

 any civilized maritime nation in the whole 

 world an instance where a vessel putting in 

 for shelter was compelled to report and enter. 

 No vessel is compelled to report and enter 

 until she communicates with the shore, until 

 she lands a man or a cargo or goes to the 

 shore to buy or to ship or do something of 

 that kind." 



Of the thirteenth article, Mr. Frye said : 

 " "We determine by law how our vessels shall 

 be recognized ourselves. "We give to one ves- 

 sel a register, to another an enrollment, to 

 another a license, and it is our privilege to 

 give to the registered vessel a license or an 

 enrollment, and to the licensed vessel a regis- 

 ter, and no nation has the right to say to us 

 you can not do this thing. It is a matter for 

 us to determine for ourselves ; and yet these 

 commissioners in this treaty have surrendered 

 that right and have declared that our fishing- 

 vessels shall be known by a great mark on the 

 bow which can be seen at a distance, pursued 

 and harassed if you do not give them free fish. 

 It was a shame for our commissioners to do 

 that thing." 



To the fourteenth article he also took excep- 

 tion : " Article XIV contains all the legal 

 amenities which have been commended to us. 

 I wish to call the attention of Senators to them 

 and see how they like them. The article pro- 

 vides that where a United States fishing-vessel 

 is fishing within the three-mile shore-limit the 

 only penalty shall be forfeiture of the vessel 

 and her cargo. They shall not hang the cap- 

 tain nor crucify the men. The 'Highland 

 Light,' the only vessel in the last two years 

 taken for violating the law and fishing within 

 the three-mile shore-line, was tried and con- 

 demned ; and what did she do ? She caught 

 enough mackerel within the three-mile shore- 

 line for a breakfast for the crew, and to-day 

 she is a Canadian cruiser. So the first amenity 

 under the treaty is that if one of our fisher- 

 men worth about $10,000, with a cargo worth 

 perhaps $3,000 more, is caught within these 

 delimited waters the Bay of Chaleur, Fortune 

 Bay, or any ten-mile bay catching mackerel 

 enough for the crew's breakfast, the crime 

 shall not be punished by any greater penalty 



than the forfeiture of the $10,000 vessel and 

 the $3,000 cargo. This is an amenity of the 

 law. No wonder that the President and Sec- 

 retary Bayard commend it ! " 



In commenting on the fifteenth article, he 

 said : " Mr. President, we do not acquire com- 

 mercial privileges by this treaty unless we buy 

 them. Now this is a complete surrender of 

 the position which we have occupied for more 

 than fifty years. "We claimed these privileges 

 and these rights. "We have insisted upon 

 their enjoyment. "We have enjoyed them up 

 to two years ago ; and now here is a treaty 

 which admits that Canada's refusal has been 

 right and that we have been wrong ; which 

 admits, if we desire to enjoy these privileges, 

 we must buy them of Canada instead of claim- 

 ing them under the laws of Great Britain and 

 of the United States." 



Mr. Gray, of Delaware, said, June 11, in vin- 

 dication of the treaty : ' ; Now, what has 

 been accomplished by this treaty for the 

 fishermen ? In the first place, we have sur- 

 rendered no doctrine as to jurisdictional wa- 

 ters which it was important to the United 

 States to maintain. So far as area goes 

 we have conceded less of our contention 

 than Great Britain has of hers, and nothing 

 of any value has been conceded by us. For 

 uncertain, vague, and disputed lines of exclu- 

 sion there is given reasonable, certain, and 

 easily ascertained lines, marked by definite and 

 prominent landmarks. The headland dispute 

 is forever disposed of, and in our favor. 



"And, excepting two or three of the bays 

 delineated, all other bays over ten miles wide 

 are conceded, a concession never before made. 

 Compare these practical results with the impos- 

 sible as well as impolitic course recommended 

 by the majority, of insisting upon a barren rec- 

 ognition of the right to fish in all bays not 

 less than six miles wide, after seventy years of 

 fruitless demand or silent acquiescence. 



" "What comment is necessary on the state- 

 ment of the majority report on page 20, that 

 we have given up to the British these great 

 bodies of water, meaning the delimited bays, 

 and that we, by this treaty, k cede to Great 

 Britain complete dominion over these numer- 

 ous and for fishing purposes the most valuable 

 of the bays along the coast of British North 

 America ' ? "We never had the right, except 

 perhaps by an intermittent sufferance, to cast 

 a seine or wet a line in any of these waters. 

 The right to exclude us was always maintained, 

 and it is misleading to say, as the majority re- 

 port does on page 18, that from the time of 

 the seizure of the ' Washington ' to the present 

 no case of seizure for fishing in these bays has 

 come to the notice of the committee. Nearly 

 all the time from the case of the ' Washington ' 

 down to the present has been covered by the 

 two treaties of reciprocity, and in the intervals 

 uncovered by the permission which those trea- 

 ties gave to the fishermen of the United States 

 to fish in all British-American waters the cases 



