DESPATCHES, EEPOBTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 309 



Leaving, then, the Island of Newfoundland, I come to the question 

 of the value to the citizens of the United States of the concessions as 

 to inshore fisheries in the territorial waters of the Dominion of 

 Canada that is within three miles of the shore for the five annual 

 seasons past, and for seven years to come. In the first place, there is 

 the right conceded to our fishermen to land in order to cure fish and 

 dry nets- to land on unoccupied places, where they do not interfere 

 with private property, nor with British fishermen exercising the 

 same rights. In one of the oldest law reports, Popham's an ancient 

 sage of the law, Mr. Justice Doddridge remarks : " Fishermen, by 

 the law of nations, may dry their nets on the land of any man." 

 Without asserting that as a correct rule of law, I think I may safely 

 assert that it has been the practice permitted under the comity of 

 nations from the beginning of human history, and that no nation or 



Eeople, no kingdom or country, has ever excluded fishermen from 

 inding on barren and unoccupied shores and rocks to dry their nets 

 and cure their fish. If it was proved that the fishermen of the United 

 States did use privileges of this kind, under the provisions of the 

 Treaty of Washington, to a greater extent than before, I hardly 

 think that you would be able to find a current coin of the realm suf- 

 ficiently small in which to estimate compensation for such a conces- 

 sion But, in point of fact, the thing is not done ; there is no evidence 

 that it is done. On the contrary, the evidence is that this practice 

 belonged to the primitive usages of a by-gone generation. Seventy, 

 sixty, perhaps fifty years ago, when a little fishing vessel left Massa- 

 chusetts Bay, it would sail to Newfoundland, and after catching a 

 few fish, the skipper would moor his craft near the shore, land in a 

 boat, and dry the fish on the rocks; and when he had collected a fare 

 of fish, and filled his vessel, he would either return back home, or quite 

 as frequently would sail, on a commercial voyage to some foreign 

 country, where he would dispose of the fish and take in a return 

 cargo. But nothing of that sort has happened within the memory 

 of any living man. It is something wholly disused, of no value 

 whatever. And it must not be said that under this concession we 

 acquire any right to fish from the shore, to haul nets from the shore, 

 or to fish from rocks. Obviously, we do not. I agree entirely with 

 the view of my brother Thomson, as manifested in his conversation 

 with Professor Baird on that subject. 



We come, then, to the inshore fishing. What is that? In the 

 first place, there has been some attempt to show inshore halibut- 

 fishing in the neighborhood of Cape Sable. It is very slight. It is 

 contradicted by all our witnesses. No American fisherman 

 186 can be found who has ever known of any halibut-fishing within 

 three miles of the shore in that vicinity; and our fishermen 

 all say that it is impossible that there should be halibut caught in 

 any considerable quantities in any place where the waters are so 

 shallow. There is also some evidence that up in the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence there was once a small local halibut fishery, but the same 

 evidence that speaks of its existence there speaks of its discontinuance 

 years ago. The last instance of a vessel going there to fish for 

 halibut that has been made known to us is the one that Mr. Sylvanus 

 Smith testifies about, where a vessel of his strayed up into the gulf, 

 was captured, and was released, prior to the Treaty of Washington. 

 As to the inshore halibut fishery, there has been no name of a vessel, 

 92909 S. Doc. 870, 61-3, vol 7 25 



