PERIOD FROM 1854 TO 1871. 625 



Consul Jackson to Mr. Davis. 



No. 301.] Consulate of the United States of America, 



Halifax, N. £., October 3, 1870. 

 (Received October 14.) 

 Sir: I have the honor, in answer to the inquiries contained in 

 your dispatch Xo. 256, in reference to the fisheries, to submit the 

 following report: 



FISHERY LAWS. 



The existing laws relating to the fisheries consist of the treaty of 

 1818, between the United States and Great Gritain; the imperial act 

 framed June 14, 1819, for the purpose of carrying the provisions of 

 the treaty into effect; the British North American act framed March 

 29, 18G7. giving authority to the Canadian government over the sea- 

 coast and inland fisheries ; and the Dominion acts framed respectively 

 May 22, 1868, and May 12, l s 7<>. relating to fishing by foreign vessels. 



All these acts, Canadian as well as imperial, purport to be founded 

 upon the treaty of 1818, and designed to enforce its provisions. 

 Some of the provisions of the colonial acts respecting the fisheries are 

 borrowed from imperial statutes relating to trade and navigation, 

 and although enacted to protect the in-shore fisheries, are not strictly 

 applicable to fishing vessels. 



SUPPLIES. 



In no act is there any prohibition against fishing vessels visiting 

 colonial ports for supplies. The silence of all the acts upon this 

 point, and the practice of more than half a century under imperial 

 laws, framed expressly for the purpose of carrying into effect the 

 provisions of the treaty, justifv the conclusion that no such prohibi- 

 tion was contemplated by it. This view of the subject derives addi- 

 tional support from the fact that at the time of the adoption of the 

 treaty the mackerel fishing, as now carried on, was comparatively 

 unknown. 



During the intervening years between l v l s and 1870, throughout 

 all the controversie between the United State- and Greal Britain on 

 the subject of the fisheries, do question until the present had arisen 

 in reference to supplies. They were always readily procured in colo- 

 nial ports, and the trade being profitable to the people of the colonies 

 was facilitated by the local autnoritie . 



The control which preceded the adoption of the reciprocity 



treaty related principally to our right to fish in certain hay-, and to 

 the exact limits within which American fishermen, by the convention 

 of 1818, were entitled to fish on the coasts of British North America. 



The rights insisted upon by citizens <d the United States were 

 practically decided in their favor by the commi ioners appointed 

 under the convention of L853, between the United States and Great 

 Britain, in the case of the schooner Wa hington. That schooner, 



while ti hing in the P>a\ of I'iiimK in l-l:.. ten miles distant from 



