458 MISCELLANEOUS 



bors and near the sea shores, but Thompson said more; he said that 

 they not only had an undoubted right to catch fish, but to hire men to 

 catch it for them. He says " It has been shown by numerous wit- 

 nesses before this tribunal, that these men can come in and employ 

 our fishermen to catch bait for them, and pay our fishermen for doing 

 so." Now I wish to be distinctly understood on this point. I sub- 

 mit without a shadow of doubt I don't think it will be controverted 

 on either side, at all events it will not be successfully controverted 

 that if those fishermen having a right to come in and fish. a they 

 undoubtedly have under the treaty, choose to hire men to ^atch bait 

 for them, they are catching that bait for themselves. That is accord- 

 ing to the old Latin maxim of law, " What a man does by an agent 

 he does by himself." He believed that not only would the Americans 

 catch bait, but that the fishermen of the United States would be kept 

 largely supplied by the fishermen of Nova Scotia and others, and 

 not only that, but the U. S. government would argue that right was 

 the purport of the treaty of 1818. The position taken by the counsel 

 just quoted was a startling one, and showed that the terms of the 

 treaty were wide ones. He argued that the right to catch bait was 

 the right to buy it, but this position was necessary for his, Mr. 

 Morine's argument now. The Americans could not only say that this 

 treaty gave them the right to buy bait, but that this bill was a vio- 

 lation of their treaty rights under the treaty of 1818. According to 

 the British lawyers the right to fish meant the right to land on the 

 strand, and all other incidentals connected with the fishery. This 

 point was worth consideration, and he, Mr. Morine, proposed to deal 

 with it another time. When the Americans were given the right to 

 take herrings it was never questioned whether all the rights incident 

 to such a fishery were not also granted them, and he thought it was 

 absurd to suppose that they did not. If he gave a man the right to 

 cross his field he certainly gave him the means to reach the field. If 

 he did not, would be absurd to think that he had not the right to 

 climb over the fence. If he did not have such an understood right 

 it was merely taking away from him by implications of law what 

 he had already given him a perfect right to. Again if he gave 

 a man the right to come to his room, he could not prosecute him for 

 trespass for opening his front door. It was always understood that 

 these smaller rights went with the greater. Therefore, as in the case 

 with the American fishermen, if landing were necessary to the prose- 

 cution of the fishery, then they had a perfect right to land. If the 

 government could prevent them from taking herring altogether, it 

 could stop them from storing them up in cold storage, then it would 

 have a good thing and good reason to put up with the loss of the 

 winter herring fishery. But if this measure deprived our fishermen 

 of the right to sell herring according to our own measure, and at a 

 price made by our own law, and the treaty permitted the Americans 

 to take the herring, it was merely transferring the fishery into the 

 hands of the Americans and inflicting a great blow on the people 

 of this colony. This bill will not stop them from getting herring, it 

 would merely make them get the herring themselves. His, Mr. M.'s. 

 point was, if our people were only stopped from selling herring to 

 the Americans, and the Americans allowed to hire men to take them- 

 selves, then the measure would do us no good at all, but rather a 

 great deal of harm. By increasing our cod fishery and decreasing their 



