ARGUMENT OF JOHN 3. EWART. 1417 



that the character of that subsequent legislation is such as to make 

 it inconsistent with the treaty, Lord Salisbury will discuss it. 



That is the only letter which Lord Salisbury had written at the 

 date of the payment of the award (and upon which Senator Turner 

 relied) ; and consequently there is very little from which Mr. Evarts 

 could have drawn the conclusion that Lord Salisbury had made any 

 very important admission. 



The second letter is in the same volume that I have been reading 

 from (British Case Appendix, p. 278), and the passage that Senator 

 Turner relied upon is in the last paragraph on p. 280, commencing 

 at the second sentence : 



" They " 

 meaning Her Majesty's Government 



' have always admitted the incompetence of the Colonial or the Im- 

 perial Legislature to limit by subsequent legislation the advantages 

 secured by Treaty to the subjects of another Power." 



856 Senator Turner always rested there. 



" If it should be the opinion of the Government of the United 

 States that any Act of the Colonial Legislature subsequent in date 

 to the Treaty of Washington has trenched upon the rights enjoyed 

 by the citizens of the United States in virtue of that instrument, Hex- 

 Majesty's Government will consider any communication addressed to 

 them in that view with a cordial and anxious desire to remove all 

 just grounds of complaint." 



Clearly, it is a matter for consideration. Very shortly after that 

 correspondence between Mr. Evarts and Lord Salisbury 



JUDGE GRAY: What is your comment upon that language, that 

 " they have always admitted the incompetence of the Colonial or the 

 Imperial Legislature to limit by subsequent legislation the advan- 

 tages secured by treaty to the subjects of another Power? " 



MR. EWART : Yes, sir ; I think so. 



JUDGE GRAY : What is your comment upon that language? 



Mr. EWART: My comment is, that that is the position which the 

 British Government assumes to-day. The question is, what is the con- 

 struction of the treaty? If the treaty means that the United States 

 fishermen can go to the fishing grounds and exercise privileges there 

 free from regulations, then, of course, the British Government can- 

 not impose regulations; but the meaning of the treaty (the^same 

 as the treaty of 1871), as I understand it, is that American fishermen 

 who go to the fishing-ground for the purpose of exercising their 

 liberties may be regulated; that is that the fishery is to be a regu- 

 lated fishery. 



JUDGE GRAY: I understand that, but taken in connection with 

 Ix>rd Salisbury's somewhat peculiar views, as far as we have observed, 

 as to the difference between laws existing at the date of the treaty 



