BRITISH, COLONIAL AND OTHER CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 543 



was well founded, and that the privileges subsequently accorded by 

 the Treaty of Washington as in part compensatory are of no appre- 

 ciable value. 



It must be admitted, therefore, that the concessions made by Great 

 Britain in the interests of American fishermen, quite irrespective of 

 their commercial value, are indeed extremely valuable to the United 

 States. Probably it will be said that in this respect there is an in- 

 ternational gain. But it seems impossible for British subjects, if 

 unmolested in their rights and privileges, to occasion any such irri- 

 tation as the United States Commissioners expressed their anxiety 

 to avoid. The provocation would be confined entirely to foreign 

 intruders seeking their own gains at the cost and injury of British 

 fishermen, thereby, perhaps, involving both nations in serious diffi- 

 culties and incalculable expense. The duty (with its attendant cost) 

 of guarding against any such vexations on the part of the United 

 States citizens devolves solely on the American Government. If, to 

 avoid the onerous responsibility of fulfilling it, and at the same time 

 to secure for the inhabitants and trade of the country the concur- 

 rent use of these valuable privileges, the Government of the United 

 States requires to pay fair equivalents, it certainly cannot be expected 

 that Great Britain would abate the just estimation placed on them 

 because of a mere assertion by the United States as beneficiary " that 

 their value is overestimated," or that any further measure of con- 

 cession is due to international amity. Great Britain claims to have 

 fully reciprocated the desire expressed by the United States Com- 

 missioners; and being in possession of proprietary rights of special 

 importance and value to herself, the mutual enjoyment of which was 

 voluntarily sought on behalf of United States citizens, we are justi- 

 fied in asking the present Commission to consider these circumstances 

 in determining the matter thus referred to equitable assessment 

 under the present treaty. 



CHAPTER III. Advantages derived by British subjects. 



1. Liberty of fishing in United /States waters and other privileges 



connected therewith. 



The privileges granted to British subjects by Article XIX of the 

 Treaty of Washington are the same right of fishing and landing for 

 purposes connected with fishing in United States waters, north of 

 the 39th parallel of north latitude, as are granted to United States 

 citizens in British North American waters. It may, at the outset, 

 be stated that this concession is absolutely valueless. 



That the several kinds of sea fishes formerly abundant on the 

 northeastern sea-coasts of the United States have not merely become 

 very scarce, but are in some localities almost extinct, is an unques- 

 tionable fact. An exhaustive investigation into the causes of their 

 decline was commenced in 1871 by Professor Baird, the chief of the 

 United States Fisheries Commission, and is still in progress. This 

 eminently thorough and scientific investigator reports, substantially, 

 that the failing supply of edible coast fishes is mainly due to over- 

 netting and incessant fishing by other means. These causes, joined 

 to continuous havoc made by predaceous fishes, have considerably 



