DESPATCHES, REPORTS, COREESPONDENCE, ETC. 475 



verification of the facts on the part of our claimants, so far as they 

 were drawn in question by or were at variance with the report made 

 to the British Government by its officers, and the communication to 

 that Government of the results as finally insisted upon by us as the 

 basis and measure of our claims. The correspondence called for by 

 Congress, and now submitted, shows the entire rejection of the claims 

 on the grounds set forth in Lord Salisbury's despatch of the 6th of 

 April last. 



Before considering the main proposition of the British Government 

 by which a direct and flat denial of the freedom of the inshore fish- 

 eries as claimed by this Government is interposed, I need to bring 

 to attention two subordinate pretensions of Lord Salisbury's despatch 

 intended to fortify his main proposition. 



It appeared that in the management of one, at least, of the seines 

 at Fortune Bay, our fishermen had used the strand for a temporary 

 service in the process of inclosing the school of herring within the 

 seine. This incident in the operation, in the original correspondence 

 as in the transaction itself, a mere subordinate feature of the process 

 of seining complained of, is now made prominent in the despatch of 

 Lord Salisbury. There being no allegation that this use of the strand 

 violates any provincial regulation of the fisheries, the point is made 

 that the freedom of the fisheries accorded by the Treaty itself, 

 283 in terms, excludes our fishermen from this incidental use of 

 the strand in the process of taking fish by seines. A true inter- 

 pretation of the Treaty concession gives no support to this pretension. 

 The concession of fishing is " to take fish of every kind, except shell- 

 fish, on the sea-coasts and shores, and in the bays, harbours, and 

 creeks of the provinces, c., without being restricted to any distance 

 from the shore." Besides this concession of fishing, which mani- 

 festly covers the use of the strand in the process of taking fish, a 

 further permission to land upon the coasts and shores is conceded to 

 our fishermen for the independent purpose of using the land for 

 " drying their nets and curing their fish." The contention seems to 

 be that, because specific permission to use the land for purposes not 

 included in the process of " taking fish," is given in terms, therefore 

 the use of the strand in the process of " taking fish " is excluded, 

 though, in the nature of the process of taking fish, the temporary use 

 of the strand in managing the seines is a part of inshore fishing. 

 This faulty reasoning is not helped at all by the proviso of the Treaty 

 that our fishermen, in using their right on shore, shall " not inter- 

 fere with the rights of private property, or with British fishermen, 

 in the peaceable use of any part of the said coasts in their occupancy 

 for the same purpose." If this proviso does not include the use of 

 the strand in taking fish, it does not qualify the fishing concession. 

 If it does include that use of the strand, then it construes such use 

 as within the fishing concession and qualifies it by the observance of 

 private property on shore, and non-interference with British fisher- 

 men using the strand in their fishing. 



Lord Salisbury's reference to the argument of Mr. Foster before 

 the Halifax Commission on the independent subject of the commercial 

 privileges for which the British case demanded compensation in the 

 awards, (and which were rejected by the Commission as not within 

 the purview of the Treaty), for the doctrines of this Government in 

 regard to the use of the strand as an incident of the inshore fishery 



