90 CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



WASHINGTON TREATY, 1871. 



1871-85. During this period the rights of the parties were regu- 

 lated by the treaty of Washington. 



UNITED STATES PROPOSAL FOR SETTLEMENT, 1886. 



1886. On the 15th November, 1886, the United States Secretary 

 of State, Mr. Bayard, instructed Mr. Phelps (the United States 

 Minister at London) to suggest a general limitation of bays to those 

 with 10-mile headlands. He said (App., p. 358) : 



In proposing the adoption of a width of ten miles at the 

 102 mouth as a proper definition of the bays in which except on 

 certain specified coasts, the fishermen of the United States are 

 not to take fish, I have followed the example furnished by France and 

 Great Britain in their convention signed at Paris on the 2nd August, 

 1839. This definition was referred to and approved by Mr. Bates, 

 the Umpire of the Commission under the treaty of 1853, in the case 

 of the United States fishing schooner "Washington," and has since 

 been notably approved and adopted in the convention signed at The 

 Hague in 1882. and subsequently ratified in relation to fishing in the 

 North Sea between Germany, Belgium, Denmark, France, Great 

 Britain, and the Netherlands. 



The clause which he proposed was as follows (App., p. 417) : 



1. To agree upon and establish, by a series of lines, the limits 

 which shall separate the exclusive from the common right of fishing 

 on the coast and in the adjacent waters of the British North Ameri- 

 can colonies, in conformity with the 1st article of the convention of 

 1818, except that the bays and harbours from which American fisher- 

 men are in the future to be excluded, save for the purposes for which 

 entrance into the bays and harbours is permitted by said article, are 

 hereby agreed to be taken to be such bays and harbours as are 10, 

 or less than 10 miles in width, and the distance of 3 marine miles 

 from such bays and harbours shall be measured from a straight line 

 drawn across the bay or harbour, in the part nearest the entrance, at 

 the first point where the width does not exceed 10 miles, the said lines 

 to be regularly numbered, duly described, and also clearly marked 

 on charts prepared in duplicate for the purpose. 



CANADIAN REPLY. 



The Canadian reply (1st February 1887) to this proposal was the 

 same as the United States would have made to a proposal to forgo 

 sovereignt}^ over a number of their bays (App- ? p. 402) : 



This provision would involve a surrender of fishing rights, which 

 have always been regarded as the exclusive property of Canada, and 

 would make common fishing grounds of territorial waters, which 

 by the law of nations have been invariably regarded both in Great 

 Britain and the United States as belonging to the adjacent country. 



