440 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



only buying water in another shape, and therefore that, when he had 

 the right to buy water, he had the right to buy ice. I do not, however, 

 suppose that this is the kind of arguments your Honors propose to 

 consider. It appears to me that if we look at the history of this nego- 

 tiation, we see with perfect distinctness what the Commission is in- 

 tended to do. When the High Commission met, and the question of 

 the fisheries came up, what was the condition of the facts? We were 

 annoyed and worried to death by our fishermen not being allowed to 

 go within three miles of the Canadian shore and by their being 

 watched by cutters. The idea of not being allowed to buy bait, fish, 

 and ice, which we had done ever since the fisheries existed, never 

 crossed our minds. We knew what had been the established custom 

 for over half a century, from the earliest existence of the fisheries. 

 We read your advertisements offering all these things for sale as an 

 inducement to come into your ports. We had the declaration of Her 

 Majesty's Colonial Secretary, that whatever might be the technical 

 right, he would not consent to colonial legislation, which deprived 

 us and you of this natural and profitable exchange, and we knew that 

 in the extreme application of your laws, you had not attempted to 

 confiscate or punish United States fishermen for such purchases. It 

 never occurred to us that this was a question in discussion. What 

 we wanted to do was to arrange the question as to the inshore 

 fisheries. . . . 



******* 



. . . Now, with regard to the treaty itself there are only two points 

 which I propose to submit to the Commission. I contend in the first 

 place that if the interpretation for which the British Counsel contend 

 is true, viz, that by the treaty of 1818 we were excluded from certain 

 rights, and by the treaty of 1871 we were admitted to them, then we 

 must find out from what we were excluded by the treaty of 1818 and 

 to what we were admitted by the treaty of 1871. I contend that the 

 language of the treaty of 1818 is explicit. (Quotes from Conven- 

 tion.) 



Now, I hold that that limitation, that prohibitive permission to go 

 into the harbours, was confined entirely to fishermen engaged in the 

 inshore fishery. That treaty had no reference to any other fishery 

 whatever. It was a treaty confined to inshore fishermen and inshore 

 fisheries, and we agreed that we should be allowed to fish inshore at 

 certain places, and if we would renounce the fishery within three 

 miles at certain places we should enter the ports within those three- 

 mile fisheries which we agreed to renounce, for the purpose of getting 

 wood, water, &c. The limitation and permission go together, and are 

 confined simply to those engaged in the three-mile fishery. I con- 

 tend that to-day, under that treaty, the Bankers are not referred to, 

 and they have the right to enter any port of Newfoundland and buy 

 bait and ice and tranship their cargoes without reference to that 

 treaty. I insist that it is a treaty referring to a special class of peo- 

 ple; that those people are not included who are excluded from the 

 three-mile limit, and if they are not so included they have the right 

 to go to any port and purchase the articles they require. In other 

 words, while the British Government might say that none of the in- 

 shore fishermen should enter the harbours, except for wood and water, 

 yet the Bankers from Newfoundland had a perfect right to go into 



