824 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



and are applicable to all fishermen alike. One of these Regulations 

 prohibits fishing on Sundays. His Majesty's Government have re- 

 ceived information that several breaches of this Regulation were 

 committed by American fishermen during the past fishing season. 

 This Regulation has been in force for many years, and looking to 

 the insignificant extent to which American fishermen have exercised 

 their right of fishery on the Treaty Coast in the past, it cannot be 

 regarded as having been made with the object of restricting the 

 enjoyment of that right. Both its reasonableness and its bona fides 

 appear to His Majesty's Government to be beyond question, and they 

 trust that the United States' Government will take steps to secure its 

 observance in the future. 



As regards the treatment of American vessels from which American 

 fishermen exercise the Treaty right of fishery, His Majesty's Govern- 

 ment are prepared to admit that, although the Convention confers 

 no rights on American vessels as such, yet since the American fishery 

 is essentially a ship fishery, no law of Newfoundland should be en- 

 forced on American fishing-vessels which would unreasonably inter- 

 fere with the exercise by the American fishermen on board of their 

 rights under the Convention. The United States' Government, on 

 their part, admit, in Mr. Root's note, that the Colonial Government 

 are entitled to have an American vessel engaged in the fishery refrain 

 from violating any laws of Newfoundland not inconsistent with the 

 Convention, but maintain that if she does not purpose to trade, but 

 only to fish, she is not bound to enter at any Newfoundland custom- 

 house. 



Mr. Root's note refers only to the question of entry inwards, but 

 it is presumed that the United States' Government entertain the same 

 views on the question of clearing outwards. At all events, American 

 vessels have not only passed to the fishing grounds in the inner waters 

 of the Bay of Islands without reporting at a Colonial custom-house, 

 but have also omitted to clear on returning to the United States. In 

 both respects they have committed breaches of the Colonial Customs 

 Law, which, as regards the obligations to enter and to clear, makes 

 no distinction between fishing- and trading- vessels. 



His Majesty's Government regret not to be able to share the view 

 of the United States' Government that the provisions of the Colonial 

 Law which impose those obligations are inconsistent with the Con- 

 vention of 1818, if applied to American vessels which do not purpose 

 to trade, but only to fish. They hold that the only ground on 

 496 which the application of any provisions of the Colonial Law 

 to American vessels engaged in the fishery can be objected to is 

 that it unreasonably interferes with the exercise of the American 

 right of fishery. 



It is admitted that the majority of the American vessels lately en- 

 gaged in the fishery on the western coast of the Colony were reg- 

 istered vessels, as opposed to licensed fishing- vessels, and as such were 

 at liberty both to trade and to fish. The production of evidence of 

 the United States' registration is therefore not sufficient to establish 

 that a vessel, in Mr. Root's words, " does not purpose to trade as well 

 as fish," and something more would seem clearly to be necessary. 

 The United States' Government would undoubtedly be entitled to 

 complain if the fishery of inhabitants of the United States were 

 seriously interfered with by a vexatious and arbitrary enforcement 



