AKGUMENT OP JOHN S. EWART. 1365 



The difference between the two classes of operations comes out 

 strongly in connection with the United States demand to be allowed 

 to purchase bait. Bait is the raw material of the fishing industry, 

 in much the same sense as iron ore is the raw material of the steel in- 

 dustry. Trading-vessels do not want to purchase iron ore, in order 

 to manufacture it into steel. Nor do they wish to purchase bait, in 

 order to catch cod-fish. The purchase of bait is not a commercial 

 privilege; it would be an industrial advantage. 



I would seek to illustrate what I have been saying by a reference 

 to the United States position in the Pribyloff Islands. The members 

 of the commission are aware that the Pribyloff Islands are particu- 

 larly valuable for the fact that they are the breeding ground of the 

 seals; and that Canadians as well as Japanese envy the possession by 

 the United States of those islands, and would like very well to get a 

 footing upon them. Canadians are excluded by former proceedings, 

 but if the Japanese proposed to establish head-quarters for sealing 

 upon the Pribyloff Islands the United States would most certainly 

 object. If the Japanese said :"A11 we want are commercial privi- 

 leges; we want to go there and carry on our operations from there, 

 and why should we not do that? We allow you to go into our ports 

 with your vessels and get supplies, and why do you not allow us to 

 go to the Pribyloff Islands? I think the reply of the United States 

 would be this: "The difference between trading and fishing vessels 

 is very clear and easily understood. The United States ports 

 824 are free to the commerce of the world, but no one has ever yet 

 suggested that this modern idea of unrestricted intercourse 

 involves the cession of industrial and geographical advantages." 

 They would say to the Japanese: "Your ships may come and go. 

 That is the modern habit. But what you want now is to come and 

 stay; to make these islands your headquarters; to appropriate the 

 territorial advantage which we have, in our propinquity, to the seals. 

 How do you found such a demand as that upon freedom of com- 

 merce? Your proposed operations are not commercial. It is seals 

 you seek, not trade. Canada and Newfoundland approve the reply. 

 Trading- vessels of the United States will be welcomed in their ports, 

 but Canada and Newfoundland respectfully submit that industrial 

 advantages are not at all the same as commercial privileges; that 

 what the United States has demanded has been advantages of the 

 former, and not privileges of the latter s^ort, and that comity and 

 sentiments of friendship impose upon Canada and Newfoundland 

 no obligation to aid a foreign industry at the expense of their own. 



In connection with this subject of the purchase of bait, I have pre- 

 pared a memorandum which is nothing but a catalogue of the docu- 

 ments relating to it. The impression may have been created that the 

 prohibition of the, sale of bait is a very recent policy. It really com- 



