412 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



" bait " should be permitted, that this was objected to by Great 

 Britain, and abandoned by the United States. And yet Canada is 

 now pressed to concede permission to the American fishermen to trade 

 in " bait," although it must be apparent, to all conversant with the 

 subject, that such a concession would afford great facilities for illicit 

 traffic and the evasion of the treaty. It appears to the Committee of 

 the Privy Council that the menacing tone adopted by the President 

 of the United States, and the new demands which have been made, 

 render it very undesirable to make any proposition at present for 

 the settlement of the Headland question by a mixed Commission. 



Far better will it be to adhere to the British construction of the 

 treaty subject to a reference to a friendly power, as already sug- 



gisted, and to act guardedly in enforcing the rights claimed by 

 reat Britain. * 



The course recently adopted by the President affords, in the opin- 

 ion of the Privy Council, a good opportunity for making a communi- 

 cation to the United States Government. It would obviously be 

 most desirable that Her Majesty's Government should acquaint the 

 Government of the United States that there was entire concurrence 

 between the two Governments in the measures adopted during the 

 last season for the protection of the fisheries, and that far from 

 straining the interpretation of the Treaty of 1818, they had not en- 

 forced the rights secured by that treaty, as interpreted by the Crown 

 law officers of Great Britain. 



The President might be informed that the liberal course, followed 

 since the termination of the Reciprocity Treaty, was adopted avow- 

 edly in the hope that it would lead to a free commercial intercourse 

 between the two countries, and that it was, when all hope of obtain- 

 ing from the United States concessions that would justify Canada 

 in parting with her fisheries had been abandoned, that it was resolved 

 to take effectual measures to protect Her Majesty's subjects in the 

 Dominion in their rights, as acknowledged prior to 1854. 



Her Majesty's Government can safely assure the President that 

 the treaty has not in any case been enforced with greater rigour than 

 it was prior to 1854; but that on the contrary, several temporary 

 relaxations have been admitted, from an unwillingness to deprive 

 the American fishermen hastily of privileges which they have lost, 

 owing to the action of their own Government. 



The Committee of the Privy Council have read the President's 

 observations on the navigation of the River St. Lawrence with even 

 greater surprise than those regarding the fisheries. The President 

 refers to correspondence on the subject during the administration of 

 the late Mr. John Quincy Adams, between forty and fifty years ago. 

 and closes his remarks on the subject in the following words: "It 

 is hoped that the Government of Great Britain will see the justice 

 of abandoning the narrow and inconsistent claim to which her 

 Canadian Provinces have urged her adherence." 



The Committee of the Privy Council are not aware that any 

 claim to the right to navigate the River St. Lawrence has been pro- 

 posed by the United States since the negotiations of 1824 and 1826, 

 on both which occasions the British Plenipotentiaries refused to 

 enter into any negotiation, so long as the claim of right was pre- 

 ferred. They said, in 1824, " The American Plenipotentiary must 

 be aware that a demand rested upon this principle, necessarily pre- 



