BRITISH, COLONIAL AND OTHER CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 483 



that it can not be shown that any invidious distinction is drawn be- 

 tween the subjects of the two nations. 



The revenue and customs laws were not adopted in order to increase 

 the extent of the restrictions of the Treaty of 1818 ; neither were the 

 fishery regulations framed to limit the privileges of American citi- 

 zens. 



They were adopted by the local legislature and approved by His 

 Majesty's Government for the purpose of protecting the revenues of 

 the colony and the fisheries of the colony. In enforcing these laws 

 the government were only acting within their constitutional rights, 

 and doing what the Government of the Dominion of Canada have 

 been and are still doing; and in view of the injury which would re- 

 sult to the revenue and fishery interests of the colony if any facilities 

 not expressly authorized by the Treaty of 1818 were conveyed to 

 American fishermen, the Committee of Council deem it their duty, 

 so long as the relations of Newfoundland with the United States are 

 regulated by that convention, to insist upon a strict observance of its 

 provisions in this respect. 



The real source of the difficulty that has arisen is well understood ; 

 it is to be found in the irritation that has taken place among the fish- 

 ermen of Gloucester on account of the termination by the govern- 

 ment of this colony of the privilege of purchasing bait fishes a 

 privilege which was gratuitously permitted to them for the past fif- 

 teen years in anticipation of the ratification of a trade convention 

 negotiated in 1890, then approved by the Government of the United 

 States, and a second time approved in 1902. 



This government has given indisputable proof of its earnest desire 

 to cultivate and extend commercial relations with the United States, 

 and it is assuredly from no fault on the part of this government that 

 the conduct of the fisheries has now been relegated to the Convention 

 of 1818. 



In view of the rejection by the United States Senate of the fishery 

 arrangement between this country and the United States, which was 

 approved by the late Secretaries of State (Blaine and Hay) on be- 

 half of the Government of the United States, it is not unreasonable 

 that the colony should insist upon the rights secured to her by treaty 

 and withhold those privileges which were freely and gratuitously 

 extended to United States fishermen for the past fifteen years until 

 that arrangement is confirmed. 



The exercise of such claims as those that are now set up by the 

 United States Government, namely, (1) exemption from the laws of 

 this colony or from their enforcement by officers of the Newfound- 

 land government, and (2) the use of fishing appliances, such as seines, 

 which is prohibited in the waters of this colony, would involve in 

 their consequences the deprivation of the people of the colony of a 

 valuable maritime industry, the ultimate extinction of a present 

 source of wealth to its people, and the virtual transfer of the sov- 

 ereignty within certain territorial waters of the colony to a foreign 

 power. 



For more than a century this treaty coast was barred to British 

 enterprise by an anomalous and intolerable condition of affairs that 

 arose out of French claims, and it was only within the last two years 

 that the colony was relieved from that condition. If the claims now 



92909 S. Doc. 870, 61-3, vol 6 39 



