454 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



It would not, under any circumstances, be admissible for one Gov- 

 ernment to subject the persons, the property, and the interests of its 

 fishermen to the unregulated regulations of another Government, 

 upon the suggestion that such authority will not be oppressively or 

 capriciously exercised, nor would any Government accept as an ade- 

 quate guarantee of the proper exercise of such authority over its citi- 

 zens by a foreign Government, that presumptively regulations would 

 be uniform in their operation upon the subjects of both Governments 

 in similar case. If there are to be regulations of a common enjoy- 

 ment, they must be authenticated by a common or a joint authority. 



But, most manifestly, the subject of the regulation of the enjoyment 

 of the shore fishery by the resident Provincial population, and of the 

 inshore fishery by our fleet of fishing-cruizers, does not tolerate the 

 control of so divergent and competing interests by the domestic legis- 

 lation of the Province. Protecting and nursing the domestic interest 

 at the expense of the foreign interest, on the ordinary motives of 

 human conduct, necessarily shape and animate the local legislation. 

 The evidence before the Halifax Commission makes it obvious that, 

 to exclude our fishermen from catching bait, and thus compel them to 

 go without bait, or buy bait at the will and price of the Provincial 

 fishermen, is the interest of the local fishermen, and will be the guide 

 and motive of such domestic legislation as is now brought to the 

 notice of this Government. 



You will, therefore, say to Lord Salisbury that this Government 

 cannot but express its entire dissent from the view of the subject that 

 his Lordship's note seems to indicate. This Government conceives 

 that the fishery rights of the United States, conceded by the Treaty 

 of Washington, are to be exercised wholly free from the restraints 

 and regulations of the Statutes of Newfoundland, now set up as 

 authority over our fishermen, and from any other regulations of fish- 

 ing now in force or that may hereafter be enacted by that Govern, 

 ment. 



It may be said that a just participation in this common fishery by 

 the two parties entitled thereto, may, in the common interest of pre- 

 serving the fishery and preventing conflicts between the fishermen, 

 require regulation by some competent authority. This may be con- 

 ceded. But should such occasion present itself to the common appre- 

 ciation of the two Governments, it need not be said that such compe- 

 tent authority can only be found in a Joint Convention, that shall 

 receive the approval of Her Majesty's Government and our own. 

 Until this arrangement shall be consummated, this Government must 

 regard the pretension that the legislation of Newfoundland can regu- 

 late our fishermen's enjoyment of the Treaty right as striking at the 

 Treaty itself. It asserts an authority on one side and a submission 

 on the other, which has not been proposed to us by Her Majesty's 

 Government, and has not been accepted by this Government. I can- 

 not doubt that Lord Salisbury will agree that the insertion of any 

 such element in the Treaty of Washington would never have been 

 accepted by this Government, if it could reasonably be thought pos- 

 sible that it could have been proposed by Her Majesty's Government. 

 The insertion of any such proposition by construction now is equally 

 at variance with the views of this Government. 



The representations made to this Government by the interests of 

 our citizens affected, leave no room to doubt that this assertion of 



