922 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



SIR JAMES WINTER: Only when the herring fishery came up as a 

 subject for consideration. 



There never was any fishery of any sort carried on by Americans 

 in Newfoundland waters; and they never did catch any fish there. 

 That is the strong point in our case, if I catch what the Arbitrator 

 means there never was any herring fishery carried on by Americans 

 in Newfoundland waters. 



JUDGE GRAY: Do I understand you I am asking for informa- 

 tion 



SIR JAMES WINTER: I am very glad 



JUDGE GRAY : Do I understand you, then, that the principal reason 

 for resort by American fishermen to the coastal or territorial waters 

 of Newfoundland was for the procurement of bait? 



SIR JAMES WINTER: That only. Absolutely and unequivocally 

 only for the purpose of procuring bait, to go outside into the deep 

 waters of the banks to catch fish. To buy herring, of course for bait, 

 to purchase bait and supplies, was their only purpose. 



JUDGE GRAY: Herring is a bait fish? 



SIR JAMES WINTER: Yes. 



THE PRESIDENT: And they began to fish for herring only after they 

 had been forbidden to purchase herring? 



SIR JAMES WINTER: Yes, the whole trouble in this case I was 

 coming do\vn to that point, it is just as well to understand it 



here. 

 550 THE PRESIDENT : As long as the license was in practice ? 



SIR JAMES WINTER: So long as the license system continued, 

 and it did continue down to the j^ear 1905 under one arrangement or 

 another a modus vivendi first and afterwards under the Foreign 

 Fishing Vessels Act of 1893, which succeeded the Bait Act under 

 the operation of these Acts, one after the other, the business was 

 continued uniformly without any change whatever, the business, as 

 I call it, of the Americans coming into the ports of Newfoundland or 

 the coasts of Newfoundland to get bait for their deep-sea fishery; 

 and that only. And they never attempted to catch herring; with the 

 one exception of Fortune Bay, there is not upon record a single case 

 of the American fishermen catching herring in Newfoundland waters, 

 down to 1905. 



SIR CHARLES FITZPATRICK : The right to do so undoubtedly existed, 

 though ? 



SIR JAMES WINTER: Oh, yes; that is an important feature or ele- 

 ment in our case, that although all the time they had the right to do 

 it they never did it, because it always suited them better to purchase. 



JUDGE GRAY : Then your contention, to put it in other words, is, as 

 I understand you,""that the liberty of fishing in the prescribed waters 



