DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 689 



officers in its employment, or in the procedure which has been re- 

 sorted to in dealing with infractions of the Fishery or Customs Laws. 



2. With regard to the spirit in which the Government of the 

 Dominion desires to act in regard to these questions, I am glad to 

 refer you again to the printed instructions issued on the 16th March, 

 1886, to all fishery officers in command of Government steamers and 

 vessels engaged in the protection of the Inshore Fisheries of Canada. 

 These instructions, after carefully defining the circumstances under 

 which foreign fishing vessels may be detained, enjoin upon the officers 

 to whom the instructions are addressed, the duty of performing the 

 services in which they are engaged, with forbearance and discrimina- 

 tion. 



It is especially pointed out that " foreign fishing craft may be 

 driven into Canadian waters by violent or contrary winds, by strong 

 tides or through misadventure or some other cause independent of the 

 will of the master and crew." In such cases the fishery officer is 

 desired to take these circumstances into his consideration and to 

 " satisfy himself with regard thereto before taking the extreme step 

 of seizing or detaining any vessels." In another passage special ref- 

 erence is made " to the general conciliatory spirit in which it is de- 

 sirable that you should carry out these instructions, and the wish 

 of Her Majesty's Government that the rights of exclusion should not 

 be strained." 



3. The information given to me by my Ministers affords no reason 

 for believing that during the past season there has been any appreci- 

 able departure from the intentions of the framers of the instructions 

 which I have quoted. 



4. In almost every case in which complaints of the kind to which I 

 have referred have been forwarded to me by your predecessors, I have 

 been able to supply them with full information which has, I venture 

 to think, been sufficient to show that as a rule, the complaints were 

 founded upon ex parte and misleading statements and the action of 

 the Canadian authorities entirely warranted by treaty and law. It 

 is, indeed, I think, a matter for congratulation considering the fact 

 that my Government had to deal on the one hand with a body of 

 fishermen accustomed to resort without molestation to Canadian 

 waters and likely to resent any interference with the freedom of 

 access which such fishermen had heretofore enjoyed, and on the other 

 with a newly constituted police force of which the members were 

 necessarily without experience in the novel and delicate duties en- 

 trusted to them, that no serious mistakes should have so far been 

 committed. 



5. I am, however, able to assure you that should there be any par- 

 ticular in respect to which Her Majesty's Government may desire to 

 see the instructions already issued amended so as to prevent the possi- 

 bility of hardships to vessels bond -fide resorting to Canadian waters 

 for any of the purposes permitted by the Convention of 1818, my. 

 Government will take into its favourable consideration the sugges- 

 tions which you may be disposed to make with this object. 



6. In this connection, however, I may point out that in the des- 

 patches which have been addressed to Her Majesty's Government by 

 Mr. Bayard, as well as in the reports presented to Congress, with a 

 view to justify legislation upon these subjects, objection has been 



92909 S. Doc. 870, 61-3, vol 4 54 



