AKGUMENT OP SIR JAMES WINTER. 995 



fishing operations of any sort, with the one exception that I have 

 spoken of in 1823, that since then there is no evidence of it at all, 

 and, I submit, that as a matter of fact there has been no fishing in 

 those waters since then. The reason is that the fish are not there. 

 It is not worth their while to go there and the question has never 

 arisen. Confusion may have arisen in the minds of the people since 

 then. There may have been a general idea that they had the right to 

 fish there from the fact that American fishermen come down from the 

 United States, bringing with them licences to touch and trade. Nat- 

 urally they come in the same vessel as those which are engaged in 

 the deep sea fishery, they go indiscriminately into all ports and buy 

 their herring and bait, and they being American fishermen who have 

 the right to prosecute the cod fishery on the banks, the notion has got 

 out, that the Americans have the right to go into those waters to 

 catch fish. But the fact that the question is now raised for the first 

 time is because, up to the present time, they have never done cod fish- 

 ing, as it was expected and contemplated when the treaty was made, 

 and they now come in to prosecute a business to which the New- 

 foundland Government, at any rate, very strongly object, namely, 

 the fishing for herring in the bays on the west coast. When they set 

 up this claim for the first time it becomes necessary to enquire 

 strictly into their legal rights. Then, for the first time, we examine 

 their title deeds to see what their title is to exercise this new fishery, 

 to carry on a new business which it is the object and purpose of the 

 Newfoundland Government, for the present at any rate, to prohibit 

 altogether. Having decided to put an end to the purchase and sale 

 of herring, as it has been going on, the United States turn around 

 and, for the first time, set up the right to catch herring in those 

 waters, and to catch herring by employing Newfoundland fishermen 

 as part of their crews. It is out of this new claim and out of this new 



business that this whole trouble has arisen. These facts are so 

 598 sufficiently well established that it is not necessary to occupy 



the time of the Tribunal by referring to them in detail. It 

 may have been generally believed and supposed by all parties con- 

 cerned that the Americans had the right to go in and fish in New- 

 foundland waters and the distinction between the cod fishery, which 

 it was intended, under the treaty of 1818, that they should be per- 

 mitted to carry on, and the herring fishery which they are now, for 

 the first time, trying to enter upon, was never pointed out, never ap- 

 peared and never arose. 



They made a treaty for the purpose of catching cod-fish in 1818. 

 They put the word " coasts " in the treaty, which gave them the cod 

 fishery, and gave them the cod fishery because they did not want any- 

 thing more than the cod fishery. If at the time of making the treaty 

 they had wanted the herring they would have put in the words 



