828 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



selves to sections 1 and 3 and make no reference to section 7, which 

 preserves "the rights and privileges granted by Treaty to the sub- 

 jects of any State in amity with His Majesty." In view of this 

 provision, His Majesty's Government are unable to agree with the 

 United States' Government in regarding the provisions of sections 1 

 and 3 as " constituting a warrant to the officers named to interfere 

 with and violate " American rights under the Convention of 1818. 

 On the contrary, they consider section 7 as, in effect, a prohibition 

 of any vexatious interference with the exercise of the Treaty rights 

 whether of American or of French fishermen. As regards section 3, 

 they admit that the possession by inhabitants of the United States 

 of any fish and gear which they may lawfully take or use in the ex- 

 ercise of their rights under the Convention of 1818 cannot properly 

 be made primd facie evidence of the commission of an offence, and, 

 bearing in mind the provisions of section 7, they cannot believe that 

 a Court of Law would take a different view. 



They do not, however, contend that the Act is as clear and explicit 

 as, in the circumstances, it is desirable that it should be, and they 

 propose to confer with the Government of Newfoundland with the 

 object of removing any doubts which the Act in its present form 

 may suggest as to the power of His Majesty to fulfil his obligations 

 under the Convention of 1818. 



On the concluding part of Mr. Root's note it is happily not neces- 

 sary for His Majesty's Government to offer any remarks, since the 

 fishing season has come to an end without any attempt on the part 

 of British fishermen to interfere with the peaceful exercise of the 

 American Treaty right of fishery. 



498 No. 247. 1906, June 30: Letter from Mr. Root to Mr. White- 

 law Reid. 



DEPARTMENT OF STATE, 



Washington, June 30, 1906. 



SIR, The Memorandum inclosed in the note from Sir Edward Grey 

 to you of the 2nd February, 1906, and transmitted by you on the 

 6th February, has received careful consideration. 



The letter which I had the honour to address to the British Am- 

 bassador in Washington on the 19th October last stated with greater 

 detail the complaint in my letter to him of the 12th October, 1905, 

 to the effect that the local officers of Newfoundland had attempted 

 to treat American ships as such, without reference to the rights of 

 their American owners and officers, refusing to allow such ships 

 sailing under register to take part in the fishing on the Treaty coast, 

 although owned and commanded by Americans, and limiting the 

 exercise of the right to fish to ships having a fishing licence. 



In my communications the Government of the United States ob- 

 jected to this treatment of ships as such that is, as trading-vessels 

 or fishing-vessels, and laid down a series of propositions regarding 

 the treatment due to American vessels on the Treaty coast, based on 

 the view that such treatment should depend, not upon the character 

 of the ship as a registered or licensed vessel, but upon its being 



