736 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



of the ports of British North America and destined for the United 

 States, should also have the right of free entry and transit to the 

 United States, etc. 



That the foregoing mentioned article of the treaty of 1871 covered 

 and included the transmission of fish from American fishing vessels 

 as well as other goods is evident, not only from the plain and compre- 

 hensive language of the article, but from the statements of the formal 

 British Case laid before the Halifax Commission in 1877, wherein 

 the right of the transhipment of fish from Canadian ports to the 

 United States free of duty, covered by that article, was made the 

 ground of claim for compensation. 



But it will be seen on inspection of the treaty of 1871 that the 

 fisheries articles of that treaty contained no provision either in respect 

 of any commercial rights in Canadian ports or in respect of tran- 

 shipments, and that the reciprocal transhipment article of the treaty 

 was entirely separate and distinct from any question of fisheries or 

 fish as such; but the proceedings before that commission distinctly 

 demonstrated that under article 29 the right to tranship fish was 

 understood by the British to be included and without any conditions 

 depending upon the force of any other of the articles of the treaty, 

 and it is also to be observed that the fisheries articles, in respect of 

 their duration and termination, are treated of separately and by 

 themselves in article 33, which provided that they, as a group by 

 themselves, might be terminated after ten years, on two years' notice, 

 while the reciprocal transhipment article 29 was left to stand inde- 

 pendently by itself. 



It inevitably follows : 



(1) That the right of American fishing vessels to tranship their fish from 

 Canadian ports to those of the United States was not derived from the fisheries 

 articles and did not depend upon them. 



(2) That such right clearly existed by force of article 29 and did not depend 

 upon any other article, and 



(3) That article 29, not having been terminated, the right or American fishing 

 vessels to enter Canadian ports for the purpose of transhipping their cargoes 

 is as clear and unquestionable as that or any other American vessels. 



441 Under the treaty of 1871, with all the privileges granted to 

 Americans in respect of fishing in British waters, the practical 

 result was the diminution of American fishing interests and a cor- 

 responding large increase of the Canadian fishing interests, owing 

 to the superior facilities of the Canadians in fishing near their own 

 homes and their right guaranteed by that treaty to dispose of their 

 fish in American ports free from all duties and impositions. It was 

 this, doubtless, that led the British Government to refuse to ter- 

 minate the fisheries article of 1871 when it had already obtained 

 $5,500,000 as the established recompense for the superior (alleged) 

 advantages obtained by American fishermen under that treaty. 



After the final termination of the fisheries articles of the treaty 

 of 1871, it being apparent "that the United States could not be per- 

 suaded or beguiled into a renewal of the so-called reciprocity with 

 Canada, the former methods of unfriendly coercion and harassment 

 were again resorted to and with great exaggeration. New Canadian 

 laws, sanctioned by the Home Government, were enacted, calculated 

 and evidently designed to effectually frustrate and destroy all the 

 substantial rights that American fishermen were entitled to enjoy 



