1156 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



been lost, if the statement just quoted from the British Case, and if the 

 argument of counsel in this submission is also true, that there was no 

 fishing in the bays until after the mackerel came there in 1838. 



The author referred, in the quotation used in the British Case, to 

 the fact that the fishing was so important formerly as to confer a 

 name on a particular description of fish as well as vessels. Of course 

 he referred to the American fishing there. 



I respectfully submit, that if the Tribunal will take the second 

 volume of Lyman's " Diplomacy of the United States," and turn to 

 p. 100, from which this extract is cited so frequently by counsel for 

 Great Britain, it will be discovered that the citation does not bear 

 out the purpose to support which it is cited. 



The author states: 



" In other words, we have renounced the right to come within three 

 marine miles of any British shore, west of longitude about 62, and 

 south of latitude about 47. Even, therefore, if we fish on the pro- 

 hibited grounds outside the marine league, we can neither approach 

 the shore to dry or take bait, both important considerations. And, 

 indeed, as the cod strike in for the shores in pursuit of small fry 

 (called by the fishermen capling, and used by them for bait) the 

 fishing is probably not good outside the limit. One object the Brit- 

 ish government had in view, in restraining our vessels to a distance 

 of three miles, was probably to afford less opportunity for smuggling, 

 a practice of which they made great complaints. In the stipulation 

 there is no provision, that the right shall not be abrogated by a 

 future war ; a permanent character only is given to it in the manner, 

 usual in treaties. By this convention we have relinquished a large 

 portion of the original fishing ground, secured by the treaty of '83, 

 at least, wherever the fishery lies within three marine miles of the 

 coast, and as near as that the laws of nations would permit us to go. 

 On Newfoundland we have obtained an enlarged limit of curing and 

 drying, but the fishery remains the same, for we before possessed a 

 right to fish, wherever British fishermen drew the line. We have lost 

 the bay of Chaleur fishing, so important formerly, as to conifer a name 

 on a particular description of fish as well as vessels. Another obvious 

 consideration is, that under the present arrangement our vessels are 

 obliged to go a greater distance than formerly, all the neighbouring 

 grounds being forbidden. Whether the grounds, relinquished, are 

 inferior, or exhausted, or deserted, by our fishermen, are important 

 considerations, but we believe the codfish, though migratory in its 

 habits, pursuing its food along the shore, returns periodically with a 

 wonderful instinct to regular haunts; and that the success, hereto- 

 fore, attending the American fisheries, has been owing to the greater 

 degree of enterprize, industry and economy, with which they were 

 managed. Our fishermen have under-worked the British, taking and 

 curing the fish almost at their own doors." 



It is, of course, at this distant day, difficult to determine, with any 

 degree of accuracy, the merits of the numerous disputes between the 

 Government of Nova Scotia and the fishermen of the United States 



