542 APPENDIX TO BEITISH CASE. 



trade," even if such a document could be supposed to divest her of the 

 character of a fishing vessel. 



The undersigned is of opinion that while for the reasons which he 

 has advanced there is no evidence to show that the Government of 

 Canada has sought to expand the scope of the Convention of 1818, 

 or to increase the extent of its restrictions, it would not be difficult 

 to prove that the construction which the United States seek to place 

 on that Convention would have the effect of extending very largely 

 the privileges which their citizens enjoy under its terms. The con- 

 tention that the changes which may from time to time occur in the 

 habits of the fish taken off our coasts, or in the methods of taking 

 them, should be regarded as justifying a periodical revision of the 

 terms of the treaty, or a new interpretation of its provisions cannot 

 be acceded to. Such changes may from time to time render the con- 

 ditions of the contract inconvenient to one party or the other, but the 

 validity of the agreement can hardly be said to depend on the con- 

 venience or inconvenience which it imposes from time to time on one 

 or other of the contracting parties. When the operation of its pro- 

 visions can be shown to have become manifestly inequitable, the 

 utmost that goodwill and fair dealing can suggest is that the terms 

 should be re-considered and a new arrangement entered into, but this 

 the Government of the United States does not appear to have con- 

 sidered desirable. 



It is not however the case that the Convention of 1818 affected only 

 the inshore fisheries of the British Provinces; it was framed with the 

 object of affording a complete and exclusive definition of the rights 

 and liberties which the fishermen of the United States were thence- 

 forth to enjoy in following their vocation so far as these rights 

 could be affected by facilities for access to the shores or waters of the 

 British Provinces or for intercourse with their people. It is there- 

 fore no undue expansion of the scope of that Convention to interpret 

 strictly those of its provisions by which such access is denied, except 

 to vessels requiring it for the purposes specifically described. 



Such an undue expansion would, upon the other hand, certainly 

 take place, if, under cover of its provisions, or of any agreements 

 relating to general commercial intercourse which may have since been 

 made, permission were accorded to United States' fishermen to resort 

 habitually to the harbours of the Dominion, not for the sake of seek- 

 ing safety for their vessels or for avoiding risk to human life, but in 

 order to use these harbours as a general base of operations from which 

 to prosecute and organize with greater advantage to themselves the 



industry in which they are engaged. 



324 It was in order to guard against such an abuse of the pro- 

 visions of the treaty that amongst them was included the 

 stipulation that not only should the inshore fisheries be reserved to 

 British fishermen but that the United States should renounce the 

 right of their fishermen to enter the bays or harbours, excepting for 

 the four specified purposes, which do not include the purchase of bait 

 or other applicances, whether intended for the deep sea fisheries or 

 not. 



The undersigned, therefore, cannot concur in Mr. Bayard's con- 

 tention that " to prevent the purchase of bait or any other supply 

 needed for deep sea fishing would be to expand the Convention to 



