792 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



Our fishing rights and liberties along the coasts of Labrador and 

 Newfoundland, as fixed by the treaty of 1818, are rights to be en- 

 joyed in common with the British people, and are such as no other 

 nation has. They are partnership rights, in the intimate character 

 of the association, in their labors and privileges, of our fishermen 

 with theirs. No two nations were ever drawn into a closer relation- 

 ship, or one in which good-will and mutual forbearance were more 

 essential to the profitable pursuit of a great industry, than that- 

 established between us by the joint struggles of the colonies, con- 

 firmed by the treaty of 1783, and renewed, as to ports of Labrador 

 and Newfoundland, almost without restriction, by the treaty of 1818. 



As to this, by far the most essential part of the rights reserved to 

 us in that treaty, we can no more preserve and enjoy its value to us, 

 under the plan of reprisals, through retaliatory laws, upon British 

 commerce, than copartners can promote their joint business interests 

 by each one attempting constantly to destroy the value of the other 

 partner's share in the venture. 



Our vessels and theirs are anchored side by side in the bays, or fol- 

 low the same schools of fish, and capture them wherever they are 

 found along these coasts. One fisherman entices the fish around 

 his vessel with bait and another comes in and takes what he can with 

 his lines or nets, just as if the whole business was a copartnership. 



If these vessels belong to countries that are arrayed in commercial 

 hostility based upon retaliatory laws and ready to break out, upon 

 slight provocation, into a war their friendly association will be 

 impossible. 



476 XI. THE USE OF FLEETS TO INTERPRET A TREATY. 



Under the misunderstandings of the past we have on both sides 

 sent fleets to these waters to protect our fishermen against each 

 other and against the unfriendly conduct of the local governments; 

 fleets to enforce agreements that the governments concerned could 

 not expound by a mutual understanding. 



If these questions are left open, and commercial war is inaugurated 

 through measures of retaliation, how many ships and guns is it 

 supposed will be needed to keep the peace between our fishermen on 

 the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland ? 



The danger in this direction does not come from the desire of either 

 Government to promote a war, but from their inability to prevent its 

 initiation through the personal hostilities of men associated in the 

 use of common rights and privileges, and stimulated by rivalries 

 which are encouraged by laws of retaliation enacted by their respec- 

 tive Governments. 



These are some of the dangers against which this treaty wisely 

 makes. safe provision. 



XII. THE AREA YIELDED BY THE DELIMITATIONS OF THIS TREATY, AS 

 COMPARED WITH THOSE YIELDED BY THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT ON 

 THEIR CONSTRUCTION OF THE LIMITS OF OUR " RENUNCIATION " UNDER 

 THE TREATY OF 1818. 



It is alleged by some that this treaty yields to the British Govern- 

 ment 50,000 square miles of exclusive fishing-grounds beyond what 

 we yielded in the treaty of 1818. 



