DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 649 



States levies a duty on Canadian fish not " fresh for immediate con- 

 sumption," such as the Government levies on all such fish not the 

 product of American fisheries and imported from any foreign place 

 whatever; and, secondly, to coerce the United States to exempt such 

 Canadian fish from all customs duties, and to enter into other new 

 reciprocal customs relations with the Canadian Dominion and New- 

 foundland. It is a policy of threat and coercion, w r hich, in the opin- 

 ion of your committee, should be instantly and summarily dealt with. 

 The circumstances will warrant and require, in the opinion of your 

 committee, not only non-intercourse with Canadian vessels bringing 

 Canadian or Newfoundland fish to our ports, but an exclusion of such 

 fish from entry at our ports, whether brought by railway cars or by 

 any other vehicle or means. It is difficult to believe that Canada 

 having within the last twenty years so severely burdened herself with 

 taxation by the construction of railways and bridges to bring about 

 easy communication with Detroit, Chicago, Saint Paul, and the whole 

 west of our country, as well as with New York and Boston, will now 

 deliberately and offensively enter upon and pursue a policy toward 

 our fishermen which, if persisted in, can but end either in a suspen- 

 sion of commercial intercourse, by land and sea, between her and our- 

 selves, or in consequences even more grave. 



A LAW TO MAKE A PERPETUAL RECORD OF THE FACTS. 



And, furthermore, in regard to seizures of American vessels made 

 during the summer which has just passed, inasmuch as a true record 

 of the facts under which the seizures were made may be lost, by death 

 of the victims, or by wanderings of a class so migratory as seamen, 

 or by other casualties, and inasmuch as Congress may see fit to com- 

 pensate American fishermen for the injuries wantonly inflicted on 

 them by the rude hand of tyrannical Canadian officials, there having 

 been no adequate American force at hand for their protection, your 

 committee advise the enactment of the following: 



Bill for the Appointment of a Commission to Investigate concerning Losses and Injuries, 

 inflicted since December thirty-first, eighteen hundred and eighty-five, on United States 

 Citizens engaged in the North American Fisheries. 



Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States 

 of America in Congress assembled, That the President be, and is hereby author- 

 ised to appoint a commissioner to proceed to such places in the United States or 

 elsewhere as may be designated by the Secretary of State, to take testimony, 

 under oath or affirmation, in relation to the losses and injuries inflicted since 

 the thirty-first of December, eighteen hundred and eighty-five, by British 

 authorities, imperial or colonial, upon citizens of the United States engaged in 



the fisheries on the north-east coasts of British North America. Said 

 388 commissioner shall everywhere have, in respect to the administration of 



oaths or affirmations and the taking of testimony, the same powers as a 

 commissioner of a circuit court, and shall be paid the same fees as are pre- 

 scribed for similar services of a commissioner of a circuit court, together with 

 travelling expenses. 



No. 230. 18S7, January 19: Report of the Committee on Foreign 

 Relations of the United States Senate. 



[49th Congress, 2nd Session, In the Senate of the United States. Report No. 1683.] 

 JANUARY 19, 1S87. Ordered to be printed. 



Mr. Edmunds, from the Committee on Foreign Relations, sub- 

 mitted the following report (to accompany Bill S. 3173). 



