666 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



is pained to believe that such has not been the course of British 

 legislation or of administrative practice. 



In view of all that has taken place, the committee thinks it to be 

 the duty of the United States, in a firm and just way, to protect and 

 defend the just and common rights of the people of the United States, 

 whether fishermen, or traders, or travellers, or all, by all such meas- 

 ures as may be within our power. The measures the committee pro- 

 poses to this end rest upon a principle universally recognised as right 

 and necessary in the intercourse of nations, and it has often been 

 resorted to in one form or another by many nations. 



It is recommended that the President of the United States be 

 invested with the power, and that it be made his duty, whenever he 

 shall be satisfied that unjust, unfair, or unfriendly conduct is prac- 

 tised by the British Government in respect of our citizens and their 

 property within the ports or waters of the British dominions in 

 North America, to deny to the subjects of that Government in British 

 North America and their property, or to any classes of them, such 

 privileges in the waters and ports of the United States as he may 

 think proper to name, and to suspend in respect of such vessels or 

 classes of vessels or such property or classes of property of the sub- 

 jects of such Government the right of entering or being brought 

 within the waters or ports of the United States, so that he shall be 

 able from time to time, as each emergency may arise, to preserve the 

 intercourse between the United States and that Government in a state 

 of fair equality. The committee, therefore, recommends the passage 

 of the Bill (S. 3173) herewith reported. 



The committee also recommends that the papers, documents, and 

 maps herewith returned be printed. 



All of which is respectfully submitted. 



(Signed) GEO. F. EDMUNDS. 



(For the Committee}. 



No. 231. 1887, January 26: Letter from Mr. Phelps to the Marquis 

 of Salisbury (British Foreign Secretary}. 



LEGATION or THE UNITED STATES, 



London, January 26, 1887. 



MY LORD: Various circumstances have rendered inconvenient an 

 earlier reply to Lord Iddesleigh's note of November 12, on the sub- 

 ject of the North American fisheries, and the termination of the fish- 

 ing season has postponed the more immediate necessity of the discus- 

 sion; but it seems now very important that before the commencement 

 of another season a distinct understanding should be reached 

 398 between the United States Government and that of Her Maj- 

 esty relative to the course to be pursued by the Canadian au- 

 thorities towards American vessels. 



It is not without surprise that I have read Lord Iddesleigh's re- 

 mark, in the note above mentioned, referring to the Treaty of 1818, 

 that Her Majesty's Government, " have not as yet been informed in 

 what respect the construction placed upon that instrument by the 

 Government of the United States differs from their own." 



Had his Lordship perused more attentively my note to his prede- 

 cessor in office, Lord Rosebery, under date or June 2, 1886, to which 



