QUESTION ONE. 31 



He claimed no jurisdiction or share of sovereignty on behalf of the 

 United States. On the other hand, Lord Salisbury admitted as self- 

 evident (Ante, p. 32) 



that British sovereignty as regards those waters is limited in its 

 scope by the engagements of the treaty .... which cannot be 

 modified or affected by any municipal legislation. 



They agreed, too, that if (Ante, p. 32) 



the Newfoundland legislature have the right of binding Americans 

 who fish within their waters by any laws which do not contravene 

 existing treaties, it must further be conceded that the duty of deter- 

 mining the existence of any such contravention must be undertaken 

 by the Governments, and cannot be remitted to the judgment of each 

 individual fisherman. 



MR. EVARTS. 



Both in assertion of principle and in tone, Mr. Evarts' letters dis- 

 play wide divergence from the attitude always theretofore assumed 

 by the United States, and so clearly stated by Mr. Marcy twenty-two 

 years before (1856). Until and during the period covered by Mr. 

 Evarts' letters, British cruisers had enforced, and were enforcing, 

 British laws as against United States fishermen, and were regulating 

 their actions. Some Government had to supply the police power nec- 

 essary for the purpose. Without demur, for nearly a century the 

 British Government had done it; and the United States had agreed 

 that the British Government was but exercising its right and dis- 

 charging its duty. 



35 MR. EVARTS. 



Mr. Evarts, in his letters, avoided reference to the unbroken prac- 

 tice; and Mr. Marcy 's circular, he disposed of (in his report to the 

 President, 17th May, 1880) as follows (App.. p. 283) : 



In the fall copy of this circular, which is appended (No. 5) to the 

 Babson and Foster report, the fishery regulations of the provinces 

 to which it relates are recited, and a reference to these is sufficient to 

 displace any" inference that this Government has assented to any 

 curtailment, past or previous, by provincial legislation of the free- 

 dom of the inshore fishery as conceded to our fishermen by the terms 

 of the Reciprocity Treaty or the Treaty of Washington. One of these 

 regulations relates to the demarcation of " gurry grounds." and the 

 other to reservation of spawning grounds, during the spawning sea- 

 son, from invasion. " Gurry," or the offal of fish, was supposed to 

 infect the waters, and the regulation was not of the right of taking 

 fish, but of poisoning them. The care of the spawning beds in spawn- 

 ing season, in like manner was a regulation of the breeding of fish, 

 not a regulation of modes of American fishing. Both these regula- 

 tions met the approval of this Government, and were required by 

 Mr. Marcy to be respected by our fishermen, for this reason, and in 



