DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 479 



the concession as now disputed by Great Britain and contended for 



by the United States. 



285 The British contention imputes to the phrase of the Treaty, 

 " in common with the subjects of Her Britannic Majesty," not 

 only its manifest effect of excluding any possible conclusion that the 

 privilege conceded to the United States was exclusive, but the fur- 

 ther effect of measuring the subject of the grant, that is the fishery 

 itself, as it was then, at the very date of the Treaty, regulated by the 

 various laws of the maritime provinces. 



For this interpolation there seems no justification either in reason 

 or in the history of the negotiation. There is not the least evidence 

 that it was present to the mind of either of the High Contracting 

 Parties to the Treaty that the subject of the fisherv to be partitioned 

 between them was any less than such as it was in its natural dimen- 

 sions and quality, and such as it was, as a subject of human control, 

 at the unlimited disposal of British sovereignty. What these pro- 

 vincial laws were no one inquired and no one disclosed. That the 

 fishery our sea-going fishermen were to share in was a fishery regu- 

 lated by and for the local population, fishing from the shore, no one 

 conceived. That the title of Great Britain should be examined, a 

 warranty against adverse title and possession or against incum- 

 brances exacted, would have seemed both foolish and offensive to the 

 High Joint Commission which negotiated this Treaty. To the appre- 

 hension of all, the map and the statistics of the catch showed what 

 the fishery was in extent and value, and the dominion of Great 

 Britain over the subject measured the security of the right which 

 we were to acquire. 



The proposition of Lord Salisbury reduces the grant of the fishery 

 from the dimensions of the fishery as Great Britain had power to 

 convey it, and by its more natural description would convey it, to 

 the fishery as it had been trimmed and curtailed by local legislation 

 and was to be regulated by local administration. He reduces our 

 enjoyment from a freedom of the fishery such as the plenary political 

 power of Great Britain could impart to its subjects, and could share 

 with the United States to be enjoyed by their inhabitants, to the use 

 of the fishing methods and seasons of the provincial coast population 

 as their faculties and occasions had arranged them. And this inter- 

 pretation of the subject of the grant by which one party parted with, 

 and the other acquired, nothing of value, turns upon the phrase of 

 the Treaty which defines the estate conveyed as not exclusive, but to 

 be held in common. 



Fortunately the closing transaction between the two Governments 

 by which the fishery concession to the United States was to be meas- 

 ured and valued, and compensation on our part therefor to be ad- 

 justed according to the measure and value or the provincial fishery, 

 not in the abstract, but as opened to our fishermen, furnished an 

 opportunity to take the estimate both of the British and provincial 

 Governments of the extent and comprehension of the subject of the 

 grant. This transaction antedates the present disputation, and brings 

 the two Governments together in a computation before the Halifax 

 Commission of the nature, extent, and benefit of the inshore pro- 

 vincial fishery. 



The considerations for the British concession were threefold : First, 

 an equivalent fishery concession on our own coasts; second, exemption 



