222 



CONGRESS. (THE FISHERIES TREATY.) 



reciprocal interchange, then this resort merged 

 the causes of irritation, and any adjudications 

 or determinations were also merged therein for 

 the time. This process, this method of the 

 provinces, is an impetration upon us in the ab- 

 sence of logic. As Hudibras says, it works 



" ' Not by force of carnal reason, 

 But indefatigable teasing.' 



" And it has been very successful. You can 

 tease a great and powerful and neighboring 

 nation with prosperity open all around it. 

 When we are brought into a critical period of 

 resisting rights, then, under the anomalous 

 condition by which England, in its relation to its 

 provinces, has always undertaken to treat with 

 us, as it were, per interpositam pcrsonam, it is 

 left for the provinces to make trouble, to make 

 complaints, to make the teasing and the impu- 

 tations, and then they say to the Canadians, in 

 effect, ' Well, we can not back you up in these 

 methods, but we will let you run along if you 

 can prevail on your great neighbor to give 

 what you seek,' and that is, reciprocity and a 

 free market." 



He denied the necessity of a treaty of the 

 kind under consideration : " We are constitu- 

 tionally in our habits repugnant to treaties. 

 No good comes of encroaching upon our cus- 

 toms laws and duties by entangling treaties 

 none whatever. Let us govern, let Great Brit- 

 ain govern, let every other nation govern its 

 own interior arrangements of trade. Let it 

 mark its own hospitalities. Let it mark its 

 own duties. Let it mark its own deference to 

 the rights of others. We will do the same for 

 ourselves, too. That is the way to conduct 

 politically these relations of commerce, of hos- 

 pitality, of deference, of self-respect, of impar- 

 tial treatment. 



"That is the great subject outside of the 

 fishery, but when this prevalent and extending 

 hospitality of trade has reached everything 

 except our fishing-vessels and our fishermen, 

 when it has included and embraced every fish- 

 ing-vessel and every fisherman of Great Brit- 

 ain in this extension of commercial reciprocity 

 and commercial hospitality, it is said that by 

 virtue of the clauses of the Treaty of 1818 and 

 the Treaty of 1783 we have covenanted forever 

 that fishermen are outside of progressive hos- 

 pitality, pretending that covenant proscription 

 for this gallant and favored pursuit and all 

 who pursue it can not be ameliorated. They 

 would say that when all others may warm 

 themselves in the hospitality that is wide open 

 to commerce all over these shores, with the 

 United States to everybody else, we have cov- 

 enanted our fishermen to be outside of that 

 progress, and we must submit to it. 



" The covenant was not of proscription, not 

 of exclusion. All commercial relations ex- 

 cluded everything itut the fishermen, and they 

 were expressly allowed what was meant to be, 

 and what should have been, insisted upon from 

 the beginning, hospitality to them according 



to the whole reach that they needed or desired 

 qua fishermen. 



" The difficulty was that they were not so 

 much afraid that these fishing-vessels and fish- 

 ermen would have the means of buying there. 

 There was nothing to sell nor anybody to sell 

 to them for the most part, and there was no 

 local interest to exclude a traffic that would 

 bring money for what they had to sell. The 

 trouble was that the imperial power excluded 

 all importation, and that these fishing-vessels, 

 having this hospitality as extensive as their 

 fishing needs, should not, in the refusal of all 

 other commercial admission, be the means of 

 smuggling and bringing there to sell tobacco 

 or spirits or any of those items that the United 

 Kingdom intended to preserve for revenue 

 purposes. 



" Senators will understand what a difference 

 there was between fishing facilities and com- 

 mercial traffic. All these shores were only oc- 

 cupied and defended for fishing purposes. If 

 they let the fishermen, with any allowance of 

 trade, come in, then where are their custom- 

 houses, where are their revenue officers, where 

 is their possible means by which they can keep 

 us from smuggling and encroaching upon the 

 revenues and breaking over the colonial policy 

 of Great Britain ? 



" Obedience on our part was rightfully 

 claimed upon this reason and was properly 

 yielded by us. All we wanted was hospitality 

 in our fishing interests. The interdict of trade 

 was universal and inexorable, and there was 

 no ground for an exception in favor of the fish- 

 ermen. But when the interdict of trade was 

 withdrawn and trade rushed in, when you in- 

 vite it everywhere and have your custom- 

 houses and your revenue system and want to 

 make revenue out of it, why can not a fishing- 

 vessel, with ' touch-and-trade ' privileges from 

 its government, trade like the rest? We give 

 this facility on our shores everywhere to for- 

 eign fishermen tinder similar circumstances. 



" That is the proper situation of whether or 

 not we should be satisfied with these restric- 

 tions, these proscriptions, these oppressions, 

 these harassing and insolent exclusions, under 

 a covenant, it is said, that should inexorably 

 ostracize our fishermen when the ports were 

 opened to everybody else." 



August 21, Mr. Morgan, of Alabama, said 

 of the danger of leaving open the questions 

 settled by the treaty : " So these vain fulmina- 

 tions of this eminent committee who think, as 

 it appears from their utterances, that they 

 have their grasp upon the President of the 

 United States to compel him to do obedience to 

 their will, and who think that by their suppli- 

 cations directed to the British throne they can 

 mitigate and assuage the conduct of Queen 

 Victoria with respect to our fisheries and our 

 fishermen are harmless. These gentlemen can 

 fulminate their idle bulls against the President 

 and against the policy involved in this treaty, 

 they can accept uncertainty and darkness in 



