996 NOETH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



" bays, creeks, and harbours." They did not want the herring at 

 that time ; there was no herring there, and there was no herring there 

 for years afterwards. It is only recently that this herring business 

 has grown up, and it has grown up on account of the settled popula- 

 tion. There being now a population settled down on that part of the 

 coast and the people catching the herring from the shore, it has made 

 it necessary for the Americans to come in and purchase herrings from 

 these people ; but even yet it is a comparatively new business. 



THE PRESIDENT: The treaty, by its language, is not limited to the 

 cod fishery ; it extends to the taking fish of every kind ? 



SIR JAMES WINTER: Yes; I am thankful for the suggestion. Our 

 contention is that they have the right to catch fish of every kind, but 

 we say: Catch fish of every kind on the coast. We further say to 

 them : You have the right to take fish of every kind, and we have no 

 objection to your taking fish of every kind, but you have no right to 

 take fish in the bays, creeks, and harbours of the west coast. If you 

 read the word " cod-fish " into the treaty, as we say it should be, we 

 have no objection to your going into the bays and creeks and catch- 

 ing such cod-fish as you can find there. But if you do not read into 

 the treaty the word "cod-fish," then you must not read into it the 

 words " bays, creeks, and harbours." If you stand upon your strict 

 rights, and not only upon your strict rights, but upon your rights as 

 the negotiators honestly intended them, then you must construe 

 ' ; coasts " in the manner we contend for. You wanted to carry on the 

 cod fishery, and the word "coasts" was sufficient to give you what 

 you wanted. That is our contention. You put " coasts " on the west 

 coast, and when you got down to Labrador, when you wanted to go 

 into the bays, creeks, and harbours, you put those words in the treaty. 

 You could have put " bays, creeks, and harbours " into the treaty in 

 both cases. That is our contention, and I say with all respect that 

 all the facts and surrounding circumstances show that that was un- 

 doubtedly the intention of the parties that that is what was in their 

 minds and nothing else. This whole trouble has arisen from the fact 

 that now an attempt is being made to justify the prosecution of an 

 entirely new business in the waters of Newfoundland on these treaty 

 coasts which was not contemplated by the parties, which was not con- 

 templated by the negotiators, and which is, under the terms of the 

 treaty itself, excluded, and from which they are forbidden. 



I have endeavoured to submit the Argument for the British Case 

 upon this question in as brief outline as possible, and only, as I have 

 said, to establish what I hold to be a primd facie case upon the con- 

 struction of this treaty. I do not consider that I am called upon to 

 proceed any further, because I should be only, perhaps, groping in 

 the dark in dealing with questions and points which possibly may not 

 arise; but, at any rate, if they should arise, if any defence or any 



