DESPATCHES, KEPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 773 



II. WHETHER IT is OUR WISEST AND SAFEST POLICY TO RESORT TO THE 



LAWS OF NATIONS, ENFORCED BY ALL MEASURES THAT MAY BE NECES- 

 SARY, OR TO TREATY ARRANGEMENTS, FOR THE REGULATION, GENERALLY, 

 OF OUR FISHING RIGHTS ? 



It is quite clear that, until we are free from the obligations of the 

 treaty of 1818. the}' are a part of our supreme law, which no depart- 

 ment of our own Government can violate without violating our 

 Constitution. 



As the treaty is perpetual in the renunciation of our right of com- 

 mon fishery, partitioned to us as an appanage of the country whose 

 independence we established, we can not, by any means short of a 

 sucessful war, re-instate the United States, by our own act, in the 

 enjoyment of the right that was so renounced. 



We can free ourselves of any embarrassment arising out of the 

 treaty of 1818, as to our fishermen, licensed to touch and trade, by 

 repealing it. but nobody seems to desire such a course of action, or 

 to court the situation in which it would place both countries. 



The struggle, in such an event, would be at once renewed under 

 retaliatory laws (if this treaty is rejected) ; but every movement in 

 such a policy would be very costly to the people of both countries, 

 and, as a probable result, would eventuate in war. 



So, we must live under the treaty and be constantly embroiled with 

 the British Government as to its proper interpretation ; or we must 

 reform that interpretation by a fair and just agreement with that 

 Government; or we must repeal or abandon it, and then rely upon 

 retaliation to redress our wrongs. 



The demand of our fishermen for an enlargement of their commer- 

 cial privileges, to correspond with those of our merchant vessels, and 

 for a more liberal hospitality in their bays, is the pith and essence 

 of our demand for a more liberal interpretation of the treaty of 1818. 



This demand has to a great degree grown out of the changed con- 

 ditions, both of fishing ventures and commercial intercourse, with 

 the British provinces since 1830. 



It was not considered in 1818, but it can not be denied consideration 

 now, in view of these changed conditions. 



It is insisted by some that the treaty of 1818 gives no commercial 

 rights to our fishing vessels ; that it relates only to fishing rights and 

 to some incidental privileges of hospitality accorded to our fisher- 

 men ; that there is no need to amend the treaty so as to secure them 

 commercial rights: and that these should be secured, and would be, 

 through our legislative powers of retaliation upon the commerce of 

 the British possessions. 



If we infuse into that treaty the substance of this demand, it must 



be done by an agreement, in the nature of an amendment, that 



464 furnishes some reciprocal concession to the people of the 



British possessions concerned in the fisheries; otherwise we 



will fail to gain their consent to it. 



If we stand upon that treaty without amendment, as a fishing 

 treaty, insisting that it has nothing to do with the commercial privi- 

 leges of our fishing vessels, and that it leaves us free to demand for 

 them the same commercial privileges that we accorded to Canadian 

 fishermen, we place this demand alone upon the ground of inter- 



