DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 469 



right to the " strand fishery " as it has been called ; no right to do any- 

 270 thing except, water-borne on our vessels, to go within the limits which 



had been previously forbidden. 



So far as the herring trade goes, we could not, if we were disposed to, carry 

 it on successfully under the provisions of the Treaty ; for this herring trade 

 is substantially a seining from the shore a strand fishing, as it is called and 

 we have no right anywhere conferred by this Treaty to go ashore and seine 

 herring any more than we have to establish fish-traps. 



Her Majesty's Government, therefore, cannot anticipate that any 

 difference of opinion will be found to exist between the two Govern- 

 ments on this point. 



The incident now under discussion occurred on that part of the 

 shore of Fortune Bay which is called Tickle Beach, Long Harbour. 

 On this Beach is situated the fishing settlement of Mark Bolt, a 

 British fisherman, who, in his evidence taken upon oath, deposed as 

 follows : " The ground I occupy was granted me for life by Govern- 

 ment, and for which I have to pay a fee. There are two families on the 

 Beach ; there were three in winter. Our living is dependent on our 

 fishing off this settlement. If these large American seines are 

 allowed to be hauled it forces me away from the place." 



John Saunders. another British fisherman of Tickle Beach, de- 

 posed that the United States' fishermen hauled their seine on the 

 beach immediately in front of his property. 



The United States' fishermen, therefore, on the occasion in ques- 

 tion, not only exceeded the limits of their Treaty privileges by fish- 

 ing from the shore, but they " interfered with the rights of private 

 property and with British fishermen in the peaceable use of that 

 part of the coast in their occupancy for the same purpose," contrary 

 to the express provisions of Articles XVIII and XXXII of the 

 treaty of Washington. Further, they used seines for the purpose of 

 in-barring herrings, and this leads me to the consideration of the 

 second question, viz. : whether United States fishermen have the 

 right to take herrings with a seine at the season of the year in ques- 

 tion, or to use a seine at any season of the year for the purpose of 

 barring herrings on the coast of Newfoundland. 



The in-barring of herrings is a practice most injurious, and, if con- 

 tinued, calculated in time to destroy the fishery; consequently it has 

 been prohibited by Statute since 1862. 



In my note to Mr. Welsh of the 7th November, 1878, 1 stated " that 

 British sovereignty as regards these waters is limited in its scope by 

 the engagements of the Treaty of Washington, which cannot be modi- 

 fied or affected by any municipal legislation;" and Her Majesty's 

 Government fully admit that United States' fishermen have the right 

 of participation on the Newfoundland inshore fisheries, in common 

 with British subjects, as specified in Article XVIII of that Treaty. 

 But it cannot be claimed, consistently with this right of participa- 

 tion in common with the British fishermen, that the United States' 

 fishermen have any other, and still less that they have greater, rights 

 than the British fishermen had at the date of the Treaty. 



If, then, at the date of the signature of the Treaty of Washington 

 certain restraints were by the municipal law imposed upon the British 

 fishermen, the United States' fishermen were, by the express terms of 

 the Treaty, equally subjected to those restraints; and the obligation 

 to observe, in common with the British, the then existing local laws 

 and regulations which is implied by the words "in common," at- 



