BRITISH, COLONIAL AND OTHER CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 275 



invariably to be found in the harbors, and particularly in the Strait 

 of Canso, preventing the sale of any commodities by our people to 

 the Americans. In many cases the vessels which they drove on were 

 not fitted out for the inshore fisheries but for the deep sea fisheries, 

 and only came to our shores for the purchase of bait and ice, &c. 

 These are the persons who were driven away, and we are asked to 

 offer our most grateful thanks to the Dominion Government for this. 

 It is true that by the treaty of 1818, not only are American fishermen 

 prevented from participating in the inshore fisheries, within three 

 miles, but they are also prohibited from purchasing any supplies 

 excepting wood and water. While advantages might arise from a 

 rigid enforcement of the treaty as regards exclusion from the fish- 

 eries, I contend it is a cruel injustice to our people to neglect to 

 enforce it in that particular, but to enforce it in a particular where 

 it must have the most injurious effects. If the true interpretation of 

 the treaty be, as it is contended by the Dominion authorities, that any 

 American fishing vessel calling at our harbors, for any articles other 

 than wood and water is liable to confiscation, I ask if the policy that 

 suited the province of Nova Scotia in 1818 will suit it in 1870? If 

 not, it would be unwise to enforce the treaty in that particular. I 

 take that ground, and I think it a tenable one, because, I would ask, 

 would the people of England today submit to be restricted to the 

 same commercial privileges they had in 1818 ? Would the manufac- 

 turers of England submit to a treaty that would prevent a foreign 

 people from being their customers? No, Sir, they would not, and I 

 therefore hold that it was unwise to enforce the treaty in that par- 

 ticular, even if it were wise to adopt any such restriction in 1818. 



But having said this much, I will go a step further, and say that 

 we have no reason to thank the Dominion government for the protec- 

 tion of the fisheries. I am prepared to shew that they have not pro- 

 tected them, that they have not driven the American fishermen from 

 the coast; that they have not been the means of our fishermen catch- 

 ing any more fish; that they have not by their so-called protection 

 raised the price of fish in the American market, and that our fisher- 

 men have still to contend with a hostile tariff. I will go still further, 

 and contend that in excluding the deep-sea fishermen from traffic 

 with our people, they are going a step beyond the treaty. That 

 treaty was designed to secure the rights of Colonists, and what were 

 these rights? The rights to the inshore fisheries within the three 

 mile limit. While, then, it was competent for the Dominion govern- 

 ment to guard these rights, I contend that they had no power to con- 

 trol the fisheries which were a hundred miles beyond the reach of 

 any international treaty. I contend that it was not the intention 

 of the statesmen of England, in entering into that treaty, to say that 

 fishermen pursuing the deep-sea fisheries were excluded from pur- 

 chasing commodities in the markets of the Provinces; if, in tact, 

 such persons could be excluded from trading with our people, the 

 same restriction might be extended to American merchantmen. This 

 stringent prohibition was made in view of the inshore fisheries ; and 

 therefore, instead of conferring a benefit on the country, the Do- 

 minion authorities have in that particular exceeded the limits of the 

 treaty, and inflicted a serious injury upon our people. 



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 92909 S. Doc. 870, 61-3, vol 6 26 



