460 MISCELLANEOUS 



He said that the bill was illegal, and he would show why. In the 

 first place, it was an attempt to amend an act of the reign of George 

 IV., as he had already noted. This act was in force in England, 

 and cannot be amended as stated in the act of 1818 and provided 

 for in the act of 1819; therefore he would repeat .that it was useless 

 if it alters all that was done in 1819. Secondly; it is a mere copy of 

 an hostile act of legislation passed in Canada more than TO years ago, 

 but was never acted upon. With regard to this, President Grant, in 

 his annual message to the Congress, in 1870, wrote as follows, as 

 anybody could see by referring to the evidence of the Halifax Fish- 

 ery Commission. It reads: 



" The course pursued by the Canadian authorities towards the 

 fishermen of the United States during the last season has not been 

 marked by friendly feeling. By the first article of the Convention 

 of 1818, between Great Britain and the U. S., it was agreed that the 

 inhabitants of the United States should have for ever in common 

 with British subjects the right of taking fish in certain waters there 

 defined. In the waters not included in the limits named in the con- 

 vention, within three miles of parts of the British coast, it has been 

 the custom for twenty years to give to intruding fishermen of the 

 United States, a reasonable warning of the violation of the technical 

 rights of Great Britain. The Imperial Government is understood 

 to have delegated the whole or a share of its jurisdiction or control 

 of these inshore fishery grounds, to the colonial authority, known as 

 the Dominion of Canada, and this semi-independent, but irrespon- 

 sible agent has exercised its delegated powers in an unfriendly way 

 vessels have been seized without notice or warning, in violation of 

 the custom previously prevailing, and been taken into Colonial ports, 

 their voyages broken up, and the vessels condemned. There is reason 

 to believe that this unfriendly and vexatious treatment was designed 

 to bear harshly upon the hardy fishermen of the United States, with 

 a view to political effect upon the Government." He, (Mr. Thomp- 

 son), in his argument goes on to say that the President used the 

 strongest language of a threatening description and made this the 

 subject of the gravest possible complaint. He, Mr. M., too thought 

 the United States would resent this bill and he believed that the 

 British Government would never allow it to go into force. The 

 Premier in speaking this afternoon referred to a remark of his with 

 regard to the island of St. Pierre. I pointed out that the enterprising 

 Americans on our West Coast, would come to an understanding with 

 the French, and the French and Americans together would erect bait 

 houses at St. Pierre, and make the Island a bait depot. The Premier 

 referred to an engagement made between England and France that 

 St. Pierre should not become an object of jealousy, and consequently 

 thought that the Imperial Government would prevent the United 

 States of America from using St. Pierre as a baiting station. The 

 Premier seemed absurdly filled with an abundance of faith on that 

 particular point. Had not St. Pierre been an object of jealousy for 

 many years? Had it not for many years been a smuggling centre? 

 Had there been one single year in which St. Pierre had not been an 

 object of jealousy to us? And in spite of that fact the Premier 

 thought that it could not possibly any longer be an object of jealousy. 

 The Premier says that British Government would not permit such a 

 state of affairs to exist. Good Britisher as he, Mr. M., was, good 



