DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 503 



States and Great Britain are the Contracting Parties, who can alone 

 deal responsibly with questions arising thereunder. 



The effect of this colonial legislation and executive interpretation, 

 if executed according to the letter, would be not only to expand the 

 restrictions and renunciations of the Treaty of 1818, which related 

 solely to inshore fishing within the 3-mile limit, so as to affect the 

 deep sea fisheries, the right to which remained unquestioned and 

 unimpaired for the enjoyment of the citizens of the United States, 

 but further to diminish and practically destroy the privileges ex- 

 pressly secured to American fishing vessels to visit those inshore 

 waters for the objects of shelter, repair of damages and purchasing 

 wood and obtaining water. 



Since 1818 certain important changes have taken place in fishing 

 in the regions in question, which have materially modified the con- 

 ditions under which the business of inshore fishing is conducted and 

 which must have great weight in any present administration of the 



treaty. 



301 Drying and curing fish, for which a use of the adja- 

 cent shores was at one time requisite, is now no longer fol- 

 lowed, and modern invention of processes of artificial freezing, and 

 the employment of vessels of a larger size, permit the catch and direct 

 transportation of fish to the markets of the United States without 

 recourse to the shores contiguous to the fishing grounds. 



The mode of taking fish inshore has also been wholly changed, and 

 from the highest authority on such subjects I learn that bait is no 

 longer needed for such fishing, that purse-seines have been substi- 

 tuted for the other methods of taking mackerel, and that by their 

 employment these fish are now readily caught in deeper waters en- 

 tirely exterior to the 3-mile line. 



As it is admitted that the deep-sea fishing was not under considera- 

 tion in the negotiation of the Treaty of 1818, nor was affected thereby, 

 and as the use of bait for inshore fishing has passed wholly into 

 disuse, the reasons which may have formerly existed for refusing to 

 permit American fishermen to catch or procure bait within the line 

 of a marine league from the shore, lest they should also use it in the 

 same inhibited waters for the purpose of catching other fish, no 

 longer exist. 



For it will, I believe, be conceded as a fact that bait is no longer 

 needed to catch herring or mackerel, which are the objects of inshore 

 fishing, but is used, and only used, in deep-sea fishing, and, therefore, 

 to prevent the purchase of bait or any other supply needed in deep- 

 sea fishing, under colour of executing the provisions of the Treaty of 

 1818, would be to expand that Convention to objects wholly beyond its 

 purview, scope and intent, and give to it an effect never contemplated 

 by either party, accompanied by results unjust and injurious to the 

 citizens of the United States. As, therefore, there is no longer any 

 inducement for American fishermen to dry and cure fish on the inter- 

 dicted coasts of the Canadian provinces, and as bait is no longer used 

 or needed by them (for the prosecution of inshore fishing) in order 

 to take fish in the inshore waters to which the Treaty of 1818 alone 

 relates, I ask you to consider the results of excluding American ves- 

 sels duly possessed of permits from their own Government to touch 

 and trade at Canadian ports, as well as to engage in deep-sea fishing 



