DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



243 



Mr. Evarts states at some length the histori- 

 cal attitude of the two Governments in rela- 

 tion to the fisheries, including the offer by the 

 American members of the Joint High Commis- 

 sion of $1,000,000 for the obliteration of the 

 sea line, in perpetuity, and continues: "It 

 seems to this Government quite certain then 

 that upon a correct exposition of the submis- 

 sion of the treaty, and the concurring action 

 of the two Governments in the production and 

 application of what they deemed appropriate 

 proofs, what the pecuniary value of our par- 

 ticipation in the inshore mackerel fishery of 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence was fairly estimable 

 at, constituted the extreme limit of any possi- 

 ble pecuniary award by the Halifax Commis- 

 sion against the United States. If upon any 

 rational view the criteria of this value before 

 the Commission, the award of the two con- 

 curring Commissioners of $5,500,000 as a 

 twelve years 1 purchase of the privilege, can be 

 maintained, it may be fairly conceded that the 

 imputation of invalidity to the award, for 

 transcending the submission of the treaty, will 

 fail of adequate demonstration." 



The Secretary thus continues : 



It happened that before the Halifax Commission 

 had concluded its labors five fishing seasons of the 

 treaty period had already elapsed, and the actual 

 experience of the enjoyment by the United Stat.es 

 fishermen of the privilege conceded replaced any 

 conjectural estimate of its value by reliable statistics 

 of its pecuniary results. These statistics disclosed 

 that the whole mackerel catch of the United States 

 for these five seasons in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 

 both within and without the three-mile line, was 

 167,945 barrels. The provincial estimates claimed 

 that three quarters of this catch was within the 

 three-mile line, and so to be credited to the privilege 

 conceded by Article 18. The United States estimate 

 placed the proportion at less than a quarter. Upon 

 the provincial claim of three quarters, the product 

 to our fishermen of these five years of inshore fish- 

 ing would be 125,961 barrels. It was established, 

 upon provincial testimony, that the price which 

 mackerel bore in the provinces, cured and packed 

 ready for exportation, was $3.75 per barrel, and this 

 would give a-; the value, cured and packed, of the 

 United States inshore catch for five years, the sum of 

 $472,353. But in this value are included the barrel, 

 the salt, the expense of catching, curing, and pack- 

 ing, which must all be deducted before the profit, 

 which measures the value of the fishery privilege, is 

 reached. Upon the evidence, $1 a barrel would be 

 an excessive estimate of net profit, and this would 

 g^ive a profit to our fishermen, from the enjoyment 

 tor these five seasons of the fishery privilege con- 

 ceded under Article 18, of but $25,000 a year, or for 

 the whole treaty period of twelve years of $300,000. 

 Although there would seem to be no reason for dis- 

 trusting this commercial and pecuniary measure ot 

 the privilege in question, yet if it should be pre- 

 tended that the provincial value should not be taken, 

 but the value in the market of the United States, 

 and, further, that an extravagant rate of $10 per 

 barrel should be assumed as that value, and, again, 

 beyond all bounds of even capricious estimate, a 

 conjectural profit of 50 per cent, should be assigned 

 to the fishing adventures, we should have but $125,- 

 000 a year, or $1,500,000 for the entire twelve years 

 of the treaty, for the gross valuation of the conces- 

 sion to the United States by Article 18, undimin- 

 ished by a penny for the counter-concessions of the 

 United States of Articles 19 and 21. Yet this sum, 



thus reached, is but little more than one quarter of 

 the award of the concurring Commissioners, after 

 taking into account the deductions required for the 

 privileges of Articles 19 and 21. 



Other proofs disclose another wholly inde- 

 pendent criterion of the value of the privi- 

 lege. These are brought forward by Secretary 

 Evarts, and, as he says, " by this method the 

 valuation of the privilege of Article 18 (with- 

 out deducting a penny for the counter-privi- 

 leges of Articles 19 and 21) would be but about 

 fourteen per cent, of the award of the concur- 

 ring Commissioners, after they had taken into 

 account these privileges." He then continues : 



You will say, then, to Lord Salisbury, that, with 

 every anxiety to find some rational explanation of 

 the enormous disparity between the pecuniary com- 

 putations of the evidence and the pecuniary measure 

 announced by the concurring Commissioners, this 

 Government has been unable to do so upon any other 

 hypothesis than that the very matter defined in Ar- 

 ticle 18, and to which the proofs on both sides were 

 applied, and the very matter measured by the award 

 of the concurring Commissioners, were not identical 

 nor even similar, and that such award, upon this 

 reason, transcends the submission. . . . 



I now desire you to present to Lord Salisbury's at- 

 tention the subject of the concession of a free market 

 in the United States for the products of the provin- 

 cial fisheries as made by Article 21. The value of 

 this privilege to the provinces was required by the 

 treaty to be 'measured by the Halifax Commission 

 and deducted from their appraisement of the con- 

 cession of Article 18 in favor of the United States. 

 The statistics of the importation under this privilege 

 showed that, at the rate of duty prevalent before 

 that concession, a revenue of about $200,000 per an- 

 num on mackerel alone, and of more than $300,000 

 on all kinds of fish (mackerel included) and fish-oil, 

 would have accrued to the United States. For the 

 purpose of argument, conceding that but one half of 

 this annual sum of $300,000 should be set down as 

 pecuniary profit to the provincial interests, the sum 

 of $1,800,000 would need to be deducted on the score 

 of Article 21 from the true valuation of the privilege 

 conceded by Article 18. If 1 have assigned correct- 

 ly- the highest possible measure of the privilege of 

 Article 18 upon the evidence as being not more 

 than $1,500,000, this low valuation of the privilege 

 of Article 21 more than extinguishes it. "Whatever 

 disposition the concurring Commissioners made of 

 this countervailing concession of Article 21 whether 

 they gave it a value commensurate with the statis- 

 tical evidence of the revenue loss to the United 

 States and market gain to the provincial interest, or 

 considered it absolutely valueless the matter is one 

 of much moment. If these concurring Commission- 

 ers gave the sum of $5,500,000 as the appraisement 

 of the concession of Article 18, after deducting some 

 $2,000,000 for the countervailing concession of Arti- 

 cle 21, the argument, as it seems to this Government, 

 adequate before, becomes still more conclusive th:it 

 the measurement, thus enhanced to some $7,500,000, 

 was not applied and confined to the very subject 

 submitted to the appraisement of the Commission 

 by Article 18. 



If her Majesty's Government accepts the award 

 of these concurring Commissioners as carrying the 

 necessary consequence that the concession of Article 

 21 is of no value to British or provincial interests-, 

 that element of calculation will disappear from any 

 possible exchange of equivalents that the exigencies 

 of any future friendly negotiations may need to find 

 at their service. A privilege that is valueless when 

 granted to and enjoyed by a beneficiary may well be 

 reserved and withheld without the charge of its be- 

 ing even ungracious to do so. If, on the other hand , 



