ARGUMENT OF SAMUEL, J. ELDER. 1455 



held in abeyance by His Majesty's Government out of deference to 

 the wishes of the Dominion of Canada. 



" Into the motives that prompted the action of the Dominion of 

 Canada and the injustice with which this colony was treated by His 

 Majesty's Government in that connection I do not propose to enter 

 as the House is only concerned at the present time with a history of 

 the treaties that have been made or attempted to have been made 

 from time to time with the United States of America with respect to 

 the fisheries, and not with the merits of the various proposals." 



I call attention to the fact that neither that treaty nor the Hay- 

 Bond Treaty contained any provision with regard to the shipment of 

 crews. Apparently up to that time, and I think I shall be able to 

 show until 1905 and farther on than that, no question had arisen of 

 the right of a Newfoundlander to earn his living by working for an 

 American, or an American vessel, whenever he could get employment, 

 and no effort had been made to prevent an American vessel from em- 

 ploying such a man; and that the privilege was more and more 

 availed of throughout all the years from 1818 down to the inter- 

 vention of the Foreign Fishing Vessels Act (24th May, 1893), which 

 appears at the United States Case Appendix, vol. i, p. 184. 



The Act of 1887 was directed against natives and their sell- 

 879 ing of bait to and their conduct toward foreign fishing-vessels. 

 But the Act of 1893 was directed against the foreign fishing- 

 vessels themselves and prescribed a considerable number of pen- 

 alties search and seizure and the effect of having caplin and bait- 

 fishes on board as primd facie evidence of guilt, and all that sort of 

 thing. But it was not put into force against the vessels of the United 

 States. 



At p. 977 of the United States Case Appendix, in Sir Edward 

 Grey's letter to Mr. Whitelaw Eeid of the 2nd February, 1906, Sir 

 Edward points out that the Act of 1905, the Foreign Fishing Vessels 

 Act, is not new, but that it dates back to this Act of 1893. And then 

 in the second paragraph on that page he says: 



" They desire, however, to point out that, though the Act in ques- 

 tion was passed to give effect to the decision of the Colonial Govern- 

 ment to withdraw from American fishing- vessels the privileges which 

 they had been allowed to enjoy for many years previously of purchas- 

 ing bait and supplies and of engaging crews in the ports of the 

 Colony, the provisions objectionable to the United States Govern- 

 ment which it embodies are in no sense new. They will be found in 

 ' The Foreign Fishing Vessels Act, 1893.' r 



I then pass down some ten or twelve lines : 



" His Majesty's Government do not advance these considerations 



with the object of suggesting that the objections which the United 



States' Government have taken to sections 1 and 3 of the Foreign 



Fishing- Vessels Act are impaired by the fact that these provisions 



92909 S. Doc. 870, 61-3, vol 10 36 



