302 APPENDIX TO BRITISH COUNTER CASE. 



the supply, although a greater number of years will be required. 

 Such regulation may consist either in prohibiting the use of traps or 

 pounds during the entire season of the spawning of the fish, or for 

 a certain number of days in each week during that season. 



IX. As the principal profit of the pounds is derived from the catch 

 of fish during the spawning season, it will probably be sufficient to 

 try the experiment of prohibition of the use of nets from Friday 

 night until Monday morning of each week of the spawning season, 

 and after that no restriction need be imposed. 



X. It is desirable that the regulation for a close time during 

 182 each week be passed by the several States; and if this cannot 

 be effected, then the General Government should enact absolute 

 prohibition, or at least during the spawning-season, as it possesses 

 no officers who could exercise the supervision required to enforce the 

 partial closure, or before w.hom complaints could be entered and the 

 penalty exacted. 



XL Any marked increase in the number of the shore-fishes, result- 

 ing from their protection during the spawning-season, will probably 

 tend to restore the blue-fish to their original numbers. 



XII. As there is reason to believe that scup, and to a less degree 

 other shore-fishes, as well as blue-fish, have several times disappeared 

 at intervals to a greater or less extent, within the historic period of 

 New England, we cannot be certain that the use of traps and pounds 

 within the last ten years has actually produced the scarcity com- 

 plained of. The fact, however, that these engines do destroy the 

 spawning fish in so great numbers renders it very probable that they 

 exercise a decided influence. No vested interest or right will suffer 

 by the experiment of regulating the period of their use, as we have 

 attempted to show that a better price will be obtained from a smaller 

 number of fish, by preventing the glutting of the market, and the 

 consequent waste of so perishable an article as fresh fish. 



XIII. A feeling of bitterness entertained by the line-fishermen and 

 the general public against traps and pounds, and those who own and 



Erofit by them, will in a measure be allayed if the experiment of regu- 

 ition and restriction be tried, at least for a few years. 



No. 13. 1877: Extracts from Arguments of Counsel before the Hali- 

 fax Commission 'under the Treaty of Washington, 1871. 



Extract from, the Argument of the Honourable Dwight Foster, on 



behalf of the United States? 

 ******* 



When I commenced the investigation of this question I supposed 

 that it was probable that an important question of international law 

 would turn out to be involved in it, relative, of course, to the so- 

 called headland question, which has been the subject of so much dis- 

 cussion between the two governments for a long series of years; but 



Other extracts from the proceedings and speeches appear In the Appendix to 

 the British Case, pp. 254-267, and in the Appendix to the United States Case, 

 pp. 1109-1115. 



