180 



CONGRESS. (NON-IHTEBCOUBSE.) 



other, to exist between Canada and the United 

 States." 



Mr. Hoar, of Massachusetts, regarded the 

 action of the Canadian authorities as shaped to 

 procure a modification of American tariff laws. 

 He said : " I do not think there will be any 

 very great necessity for further argument in 

 support of this bill to convince the minds of a 

 majority of Senators of the expediency of the 

 measure. But the State which I represent is 

 more interested five times over than all the 

 other communities together in the immediate 

 controversy. Of the vessels which have ex- 

 perienced the outrages and annoyances recited 

 in the report of the committee, twenty-five be- 

 long to the State of Massachusetts besides four 

 whose port is not stated, and seven to the State 

 of Maine, formerly a part of Massachusetts. 



" I understand that the object of these an- 

 noyances and grievances which have been re- 

 cited in the report of the committee is not 

 principally or largely to assert the British or 

 Canadian interpretation of the Treaty of 1818. 

 A dispute is sought in regard to the terms of 

 that treaty, not to protect the sources of the 

 fisheries from an interference by Massachu- 

 setts or Maine competition, but it is to compel 

 the people of the United States to change 

 their laws in a matter of purely domestic con- 

 cern. It is not that Canada may catch fish 

 without molestation ; it is that she may sell 

 fish without the interference of the American 

 tariff policy that these difficulties are fo- 

 mented. 



" I regard, in that point of view, the attempt 

 by a foreign country by hostile interference 

 with our ships on the high-seas, or in the 

 neighborhood of their ports, or in their ports, 

 to enforce upon us, against our will, a certain 

 domestic policy as being one of the most em- 

 phatic and flagrant acts of hostility that can 

 be committed without actual war. These seiz- 

 ures, with the exception, perhaps, of one or 

 two instances, are seizures upon a pretense 

 and without the reality of any interference 

 either with treaty or with local regulation or 

 law by the American vessels. 



"This attempt on the part of Canada has 

 received, as is apparent from the diplomatic 

 correspondence, the full countenance of the 

 mother-country, of which Canada is a depend- 

 ent. It is said that in one instance there has 

 been an expression of regret for the actual 

 lowering of the American flag. I do not see 

 that the lowering of the American flag is in 

 substance an offense at all equal in rank, of 

 which we have any more reason to complain, 

 than the taking custody without actual right 

 of American vessels and their masters and 

 crews when they are about their lawful em- 

 ployment. It is an affront undoubtedly ; it is 

 an insult; but the substance of the offense is 

 not the lowering of the flag, but is the seizure 

 of the ship whose nationality the flag protects. 



"The apology which has been conveyed to 

 us is not the apology which is due for the out- 



rage. There is no apology on the part of 

 Great Britain, but a simple communication to 

 us by the British minister of an expression of 

 regret of the local dependency, with which we 

 can have no diplomatic relations, and whose 

 satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the act of 

 the officer is of no sort of importance. The 

 absence of any other expression of regret, 

 either for the single action to which this re- 

 lates or for a series of offenses or outrages of 

 which that is but one, is a more significant 

 matter, as it seems to me, than the single ex- 

 pression which has been communicated to our 

 Secretary of State by the British representa- 

 tive to this country. 



"I do not understand, with the Senator 

 from Kansas, that the object of this measure 

 is to bring about either a war on one side or new 

 diplomacy or negotiation on the other. All 

 that is to be done is that we say to Great Brit- 

 ain, and to the Dominion of Canada through 

 her, that so far from accomplishing anything 

 in the way of diminution, or lightening, or 

 repeal of our customs duties by this course of 

 conduct, so long as it continues you shall not 

 be permitted to sell your fish or any other 

 product of the offending district in the Ameri- 

 can market. 



" The only answer to this measure which is 

 to be expected, and all that will be expected, 

 and which will be effectual, is a communica- 

 tion of Great Britain that she has given orders 

 that this course of offensive proceeding shall 

 stop. It requires no new treaty, and certain- 

 ly, I think, requires no further exertion of 

 force on the part of the American Govern- 

 ment." 



Senator Morgan, of Alabama, argued that 

 the great issue is the interpretation of the 

 Treaty of 1818. He said: "The committee in 

 preparing the bill and bringing it forward in 

 the Senate first took into consideration what 

 was the actual condition of the treaty relations 

 between the United States and Great Britain 

 respecting the British provinces in North 

 America, and a very close, narrow investiga- 

 tion of the whole field of inquiry satisfied us 

 that we were entirely without treaty engage- 

 ments with Great Britain in respect of our 

 commerce with the Canadian Dominion. It 

 is true that in the Treaty of Washington we 

 have mutual stipulations in respect of trans- 

 portation, liable to be suspended, I believe, 

 upon two years' notice or upon the failure of 

 either Government to carry out in good faith, 

 according to the opinion of the other Govern- 

 ment, the provisions of those mutual stipula- 

 tions. But the Senate will do well to remem- 

 ber, in approaching this question and in decid- 

 ing what is its duty in respect of it, that the 

 United States have no commercial engage- 

 ments with Great Britain with reference to 

 our commerce with the Canadian provinces. 

 Our engagements are limited to what I have 

 already stated and to the Treaty of 1818 relat- 

 ing to the fisheries. The relations between 



