DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 697 



Her Majesty's Government cordially agree with your Government 

 in believing that a determination of these limits would, whatever 

 may be the future commercial relations between Canada and the 

 United States either in respect of the fishing industry or in regard to 

 the interchange of other commodities, be extremely desirable and 

 they will be found ready to co-operate with your Government in 

 effecting such settlement. 



They are of opinion that Mr. Bayard was justified in reverting to 

 the precedent afforded by the negotiations which took place upon 

 this subject between Great Britain and the United States after the 

 expiration of the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854, and they concur with 

 him in believing that the draft Protocol communicated by Mr. Adams 

 in 1866 to the Earl of Clarendon affords a valuable indication of the 

 lines upon which a negotiation directed to the same points might now 

 be allowed to proceed. 



Mr. Bayard has himself pointed out that its concluding 

 415 paragraph, to which Lord Clarendon emphatically objected, is 

 not contained in the 1st Article of the Memorandum now for- 

 warded by him ; but he appears to have lost sight of the fact that the 

 remaining Articles of that Memorandum contain stipulations not less 

 open to objection, and calculated to affect even more disadyantage- 

 ously the permanent interests of the Dominion in the fisheries adja- 

 cent to its coasts. 



There can be no objection on the part of Her Majesty's Govern- 

 ment to the appointment of a Mixed Commission, whose duty it 

 would be to consider and report upon the matters referred to in the 

 three first Articles of the draft Protocol communicated to the Earl 

 of Clarendon by Mr. Adams in 1866. 



Should a Commission instructed to deal with these subjects be 

 appointed at an early date, the result of its investigations might be 

 reported to the Governments affected without much loss of time. 

 Pending the termination of the questions which it would discuss, it 

 would be indispensable that United States' fishing vessels entering 

 Canadian bays and harbours should govern themselves not only 

 according to the terms of the Convention of 1818, but by the Regula- 

 tions to which they, in common with other vessels, are subject while 

 within such waters. 



Her Majesty's Government, however, have no doubt that every 

 effort will be made to enforce those Regulations in such a manner 

 as to cause the smallest amount of inconvenience to fishing vessels 

 entering Canadian ports under stress of weather, or for any other 

 legitimate purpose. 



But there is another course which Her Majesty's Government are 

 inclined to propose, and which, in their opinion, would afford a 

 temporary solution of the controversy equally creditable to both 

 parties. 



Her Majesty's Government have never been informed of the rea- 

 sons which induced the Government of the United States to denounce 

 the Fishery Articles of the Treaty of Washington, but they have 

 understood that the adoption of that course was in a great degree 

 the result of a feeling of disappointment at the Halifax Award, 

 under which the United States were called upon to pay the sum of 

 1,100.000, being the estimated value of the benefits which would 

 accrue to them, in excess of those which would be derived by Canada 



