BEITISH, COLONIAL AND OTHER CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 273 



not soon forget, and to force a nation of forty millions against their 

 will into a treaty. That, it is generally admitted, was the real de- 

 sign of the Dominion Government, but what has the result been? 

 No person who is acquainted with all the facts which have come up 

 from time to time can suppose that any nation will submit to have 

 their property treated as the property of the American people has 

 been treated by the officers of the Dominion, who have been sent 

 along the shores not for the protection of our fisheries but, as I will 

 presently shew, for aggression upon those people. I can also shew 

 that these officers inflicted just as serious injury on our own people 

 as thejr have upon the Americans. I do not mean to say that the 

 Dominion Government had not a right to see that the Treaty was 

 carried out, for it is plain that no vessel of American register should 

 have been allowed to come within three miles of the shore to catch 

 fish, but when the American vessels were debarred from coming into 

 our ports and trading with our merchants for the necessities of their 

 voyages, the Dominion Government shewed to the world that they 

 had some other object than that of merely protecting the fisheries 

 there was a vindictiveness in the act which shewed a desire for 

 hostility and a willingness to bring about a crisis between the two 

 countries. Will any gentleman then rise and defend the course pur- 

 sued in debarring our merchants from obtaining thousands of dollars 

 from trading with the fishing vessels? Furthermore, I ask will any 

 member rise and vindicate the action of Dominion officers in driving 

 American vessels out of the harbors in which they had taken refuge, 

 in the face of a storm to live or perish as they might ? No gentleman 

 within this Assembly I am sure will vindicate such a course, and no 

 one can deny that such cases have occurred. Our fishermen, likewise 

 have been denied the privilege of selling bait to the American fisher- 

 men and of receiving their money in return. We had an instance in 

 the Bay of Fundy of a vessel outside the three mile limit, having 

 received and paid for bait from our fishermen and being seized and 

 confiscated for it shortly afterwards. How can that be shewn to be 

 legitimate or just? If the American in that case had laid himself 

 open to the law our own countrymen were as much to blame as he 

 in selling the bait and taking the money. But when I look at the 

 amendment brought in by the Atty. General I feel, as I have often 

 felt before, and as I felt when the Province was forced into con- 

 federation with Canada, instead of belonging to the power that once 

 protected us, we have been transferred to another power one that 

 cares little what becomes of us. While the Americans have been 

 prevented from coming into our harbors and leaving their money in 

 return for the goods of our merchants, this has had no effect in 

 Canada proper. What Canadian feels the effect of this policy? 

 Right well do the Dominion Government know what the result of 

 the policy has been. By the course which they have pursued they 

 have raised up a hostile feeling on the part of the American Govern- 

 ment who, if not altogether, dead and senseless to the rights of their 

 people must feel indignant that their fishermen should be debarred 

 from receiving supplies, and ours should be deprived of one means of 

 earning a subsistance for their families. 



I will ask any member to place himself in the position of the owner 

 of one of these American vessels, such as that seized at Cape North 

 by Tory, a vessel which was not fitted out for the prosecution of the 



