550 MISCELLANEOUS 



as regards herring, turbot, and halibut. It is not at all probable 

 that, possessing as they now do the right to take herring and capelin 

 for themselves on all parts of the Newfoundland coasts, they -will 

 continue to purchase as heretofore, and they will thus prevent the 

 local fishermen, especially those of Fortune Bay, from engaging in a 

 very lucrative employment which formerly occupied them during 

 a portion of the winter season for the supply of the United States 

 market. 



The words of the Treaty of Washington, in dealing with the ques- 

 tion of compensation, make no allusion to what use the United States 

 may or do make of the privileges granted them, but simply state 

 that, inasmuch as it is asserted bv Her Majesty's Government that 

 the privileges accorded to the citizens of the United States under 

 Article XVIII are of greater value than those accorded by Articles 

 XIX and XXI to the subjects of Her Britannic Majesty, and this 

 is not admitted by the United States, it is further agreed that a 

 Commission shall be appointed, having regard to the privileges ac- 

 corded by the United States to Her Britannic Majesty's subjects in 

 Articles Nos. XIX and XXI, the amount of any compensation to be 

 paid by the Government of the United States to that of Her Majesty 

 in return for the privileges accorded to the United States under 

 Article XVIII. 



It is asserted, on the part of Her Majesty's Government, that the 

 actual use which may be made of this privilege at the present moment 

 is not so much in question as the actual value of it to those who may, 

 if they will, use it. It is possible, and even probable, that United 

 States fishermen may at any moment avail themselves of the privi- 

 lege of fishing in Newfoundland inshore waters to a much larger 

 extent than they do at present; but even if they should not do so, 

 it would not relieve them from the obligation of making the just 

 payment for a right which they have acquired subject to the con- 

 dition of making that payment. The case may not be inaptly illus- 

 trated by the somewhat analogous one of a tenancy of shooting or 

 fishing privileges; it is not because the tenant fails to exercise the 

 rights which he has acquired by virtue of his lease that the pro- 

 prietor should be debarred from the recovery of his rent. 



There is a marked contrast, to the advantage of the United States 

 citizens, between the privilege of access to fisheries the most valu- 

 able and productive in the world, and the barren right accorded to 

 the inhabitants of Newfoundland of fishing in the exhausted and 

 preoccupied waters of the United States north of the thirty-ninth 

 parallel of north latitude, in which there is no field for lucrative 

 operations even if British subjects desired to resort to them; and 

 there are strong grounds for believing that year by year, as United 

 States fishermen resort in greater numbers to the coasts of New- 

 foundland for the purpose of procuring bait and supplies, they will 

 become more intimately acquainted with the resources of the inshore 

 fisheries and their unlimited capacity for extension and develop- 

 ment. As a matter of fact, United States vessels have, since the 

 Washington Treaty came into operation, been successfully engaged 

 in these fisheries; and it is but reasonable to anticipate that, as the 

 advantages to be derived from them become more widely known, 

 larger numbers of United States fishermen will engage in them. 



