474 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



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 authority is as serious 

 and extensive in practical relations as it is in principle. The rude application 

 made to the twenty vessels in Fortune Bay of this asserted authority, in Janu- 

 ary last, drove them from the profitable prosecution of their projected cruises. 

 By the same reason the entire inshore fishery is held by us upon the same tenure 

 of dependence upon the Parliament of the Dominion or the Legislatures of the 

 several provinces. 



******* 



In the opinion of this Government, it is essential that we should at once invite 

 the attention of Lord Salisbury to the question of provincial control over the 

 fishermen of the United States in their prosecution of the privilege secured to 

 them by the Treaty. So grave a question in its bearing upon the obligations 

 of this Government under the Treaty, makes it necessary that the President 

 should ask from Her Majesty's Government a frank avowel or disavowal of 

 the paramount authority of provincial legislation to regulate the enjoyment by 

 our people of the inshore fishery, which seems to be intimated, if not asserted, 

 in Lord Salisbury's note. 



Before a receipt of a reply from Her Majesty's Government, it would be 

 premature to consider what should be the course of this Government should 

 this limitation upon the Treaty privileges of the United States be insisted upon 

 by the British Government as their construction of the Treaty. 



In answer to this unequivocal presentation both of the freedom of 

 the fishery as this Government interpreted the concession of the 

 Treaty and of the absolute suppression of this Treaty right as a 

 matter of practical value to our fishermen by this actual provincial 

 legislation, Lord Salisbury replied with less distinctness, no doubt, 

 but yet in a sense which I could not but regard as disclaiming any 

 right to qualify the Treaty by municipal legislation previous or sub- 

 sequent to its date. After intimating a dissent from the doctrine, 

 if I had intended to assert it, " that no British authority has any right 

 to pass any kind of law binding Americans who are fishing in British 

 waters," Lord Salisbury says: 



On the other hand Her Majesty's Government will readily admit, what is 

 indeed self-evident, that British sovereignty as regards these matters is limited 

 in its scope by the engagements of the Treaty of Washington which cannot be 

 modified or affected by any municipal legislation. I cannot anticipate that with 

 regard to these principles any difference will be found to exist between the 

 views of the two Governments. If, however, it be admitted that the Newfound- 

 land legislators have the right of binding Americans who fish within their 

 waters, by any laws which do not contravene existing Treaties, it must further 

 be conceded that the duty of determining the existence of any such contraven- 

 tion must be undertaken by the Governments, and cannot be remitted to the 

 discretion of each individual fisherman, for such a discretion if exercised on 

 one side, can hardly be refused on the other. 



******* 



Her Majesty's Government prefer the view that the law enacted by the Legis- 

 lature of the country, whatever it may be, ought to be obeyed by natives and 

 foreigners alike who are sojourning within the territorial limits of its juris- 

 diction, but that if a law has been inadvertently passed which is in any degree 

 or respect at variance with rights conferred on a foreign Power by Treaty, 

 the correction of the mistake as committed, at the earliest period after its 

 existence shall have been ascertained and recognized, is a matter of interna- 

 tional obligation. 



This despatch was received by me in November, and on the 23d of 

 the same month the payment of the Award of the Halifax Commis- 

 sion was made at the date provided in the Treaty. The further con- 

 sideration of the Fortune Bay claims seemed to require only the 



