DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 659 



part, which had been required by the former Act. So that an Ameri- 

 can vessel fishing at sea, being driven by stress $>f weather, want of 

 wood or water, or need of repairing damages, which should run into 

 a Canadian harbour, under the right reserved to it by the treaty of 

 1818, the moment her anchor was dropped or she was within" the 

 shelter of a headland, was, at the discretion of the Canadian official, 

 to be immediately Seized and carried into port which might be, and 

 often would be, many miles from the place where she would have her 

 safe shelter or could obtain her wood and water or repair her 

 damages. 



The committee thinks it is not too much to say that such a pro- 

 vision is, in view of the treaty, and of the common principles of 

 comity among nations, grossly in violation of the rights secured by 

 the treaty and of that friendly conduct of good neighborhood that 

 should exist between civilised nations holding relations such as ought 

 to exist between the United States and Her Majesty's dominions. 



This last provision was substantially re enacted, with the Royal 

 approval of the Queen, given on the 26th November, 1886, with the 

 addition that if any such vessel had entered such waters for any 

 purpose not permitted by treaty or convention, or by any law of the 

 United Kingdom or Canada for the time being in force, she should 

 be forfeited, &c. 



From all this it would seem that it is the deliberate purpose of the 

 British Government to leave it to the individual discretion of each 

 one of the numerous subordinate magistrates, fishery officers, and 

 customs officers of the Dominion of Canada to seize and bring into 

 port any American vessels, whether fishing or other, that he finds 

 within any harbour in Canada or hovering within Canadian waters. 

 The statute does not even except those Canadian waters in which, 

 along a large part of the southern coast and the whole of the western 

 coast of Newfoundland, they are entitled to fish, to say nothing of 

 the vast extent of the continental coast of Canada. 



The committee repeats its expression of the firm opinion that this 

 legislation is in violation of the treaty of 1818, as it respects Ameri- 

 can fishing-vessels, and in violation of the principles of comity and 

 good neighborhood that ought to exist in respect of the commercial 

 intercourse, or the coming of the vessels of either, having any com- 

 mercial character, within the waters of the other. Had it been in- 

 tended to harass and embarrass American fishing and other vessels, 

 and to make it impracticable for them to enjoy their treaty and other 

 common rights, such legislation would have been perfectly adapted 

 to that end. 



The instances in which this sort of legislation has been applied 

 during the last year, to the great embarrassment and injury of Ameri- 

 can rights and interests although in some of them it may doubtless 

 appear that there has been some merely formal or technical violation 

 of some Canadian Customs statute or regulation are the fol- 

 lowing : 



394 Vessels denied the Right or Privilege of purchasing Coal or 

 Ice or of transhipping Fish at Ports of the Dominion, or 

 refused other Rights or Privileges therein. 



"Novelty" (steamship) denied the right to take in coal, or pur- 

 chase ice, or tranship fish in bond to the United States, at Pictou, 



