50 CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



States wholly dependent for their means of livelihood on the fisheries, 

 and they appealed to the benevolence and humanity of Great Britain 

 to preserve this industry to this community. Mr. John Quincy 

 Adams, in an eloquent passage," spoke of the 10.000 men, and of their 

 wives and children, for whom the fisheries provided daily bread, and 

 repeated stress was laid in the transactions of the time on the neces- 

 sity of maintaining the fishing population. Equally important, in 

 the view of the negotiators, was the fact that the fisheries were a 

 nursery for the seamen of the country; in the words of Mr. Rush, one 

 of the negotiators of the convention of 1818, the fishing privileges- 

 were of great magnitude to the United States; besides affording 

 profitable fields of commerce they fostered a race of seamen conducive 

 to the national riches in peace and to defence and glory in war. 6 



These were reasons, and reasons of weight, for giving liberties to 

 fishermen dwelling in the United States to ply their calling on the 

 treaty shores, but they were no reasons for giving liberties to trade 

 in fish taken by the fishermen of other countries. That was not the 

 object the negotiators had in view. 



MR. EV ARTS' VIEW. 



4. Mr. W. M. Evarts. Secretary of State, in a memorandum 

 57 addressed to the President of the United States dated the 17th 

 May, 1880, laid emphasis on the point that the corresponding 

 liberty in the Washington treaty of 1871 was not intended to confer 

 any access to the fisheries upon foreigners. Speaking of that treaty 

 he said (App., p. 284) : 



There was, to be sure, a restriction imposed upon both countries 

 which excluded both equally from extending the enjoyment of cither's 

 share of the common fishery beyond the " inhabitants of the United 

 States " on the one side, and " Her Britannic Majesty's subjects " on 

 ihe other, thus disabling either Government from impairing the share 

 of the other by introducing foreign fishermen into the common fishery. 



But the contention of the United States to-day is that they can, 

 under the treaty of 1818, do the very thing which Mr. Evarts stated 

 was contrary to the corresponding provisions of the treaty of 1871. 

 They contend that they can introduce foreign fishermen into these 

 fisheries, although by so doing they must impair the share of the 

 British fishermen therein. 



OTHER PROVISIONS OF TREATY. 



5. Other provisions of the article are consistent only with this 

 construction. The liberty to dry and cure fish is confined to Ameri- 

 can fishermen (and it is inconceivable that it was intended that the 

 inhabitants of the United States might take fish by means of person* 



" Fisheries and the Mississippi," p. 204. 



6 " Residence at the Court of London," ed. 1833. p. 324. 



