654 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



Another question may arise in respect of whether American fish- 

 ing-vessels or other American vessels may lawfully traverse the Gut 

 of Canso (a narrow strait connecting the waters of the Atlantic on 

 the south-east of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton with the waters of the 

 Gulf of St. Lawrence on the north-west.) This strait is a few miles 

 long, and much less in some of its parts than 6 miles wide. It is 

 naturally navigable for sea-going vessels, and always has been navi- 

 gated and used for the passage of vessels from the southward into 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and back again southward by vessels find- 

 ing it convenient so to use it. 



The committee is of opinion that, in the absence of special treaty 

 arrangements, such straits as the Gut of Canso are free for public 

 and peaceable navigation in the same manner that the seas which they 

 connect are. A comparatively recent and notable instance of the 

 application of this principle is found in the case of the Simonoseki 

 Strait, in Japan, connecting the Corean Channel, to the north west 

 of Japan, with the Pacific Ocean on the south-east. This strait at one 

 of its points is very much less than 3 miles in width ; and the passage 

 of mercantile vessels of the United States, Great Britain, France, 

 and the Netherlands having been interrupted there by Japanese bat- 

 teries, &c., Japan was compelled by these four Governments to make 

 reparation, after both British and American vessels of war had 

 forcibly destroyed the Japanese batteries. 



Of course, the right of peaceful passage through the Gut of Canso 

 by unarmed vessels is entirely distinct from any right to fish or do 

 any other thing there than merely to pass through. And if, in such 

 an instance, a purely fishing vessel of the United States, having no 

 other character whatever, should wish to pass through that strait 

 from one part of the sea to another, it is presumed that it would 

 hardly be insisted by the British Government that such a pas- 

 391 sage for such a purpose was prohibited by the 1st article of 

 the treaty of 1818, which, as we have before stated, was ap- 

 plicable only to the matter of taking fish, &c., on the specified coasts, 

 and to the prohibition of American fishermen, as such, to enter the 

 British bays or habours for any other purposes than those of shelter, 

 repairing damages, purchasing wood, and obtaining water. The 

 general right of passage for all vessels entitled to sail the seas was 

 not in any way mentioned, and it must be presumed it was not 

 intended by the language used in the treaty to limit or modify such 

 rights. 



On the termination of the reciprocity treaty of 1854 the fishermen 

 of the United States were remitted to the 1st article of the treaty of 

 1818, already cited, for the definition and regulation of their rights 

 in the British w r aters therein mentioned. Between the period of the 

 termination of the treaty of 1854 (namely, 1866) and the treaty of 

 1871 some considerable difficulty and discussion took place con- 

 cerning the question whether the 3-mile line should be ascertained 

 by drawing the same from headland to headland (as across the Bay 

 of Fundy and the Bay of Chaleur), or whether it should be drawn 

 3 miles from the actual shores of such bays and headlands. The 

 general result of those discussions would seem to have been an acqui- 

 escence by the British Government in the right of American fisher- 

 men to fish within those bays and exterior to a line 3 miles from 

 the shores. By the treaty of 1871 it was agreed that the fishermen 



