ARGUMENT OF SAMUEL J. ELDER. 1549 



" I arrived at Gloucester, November 12, 1904, and enclosed is a cer- 

 tificate from the Custom House Officer, of Gloucester, showing that 

 the fare was duly landed at this port. 



" On another voyage to the Bay of Islands in another vessel, 

 Schooner ' Essex.' On my arrival at the above named place, Novem- 

 ber 28, 1904, I was immediately summoned before a magistrate and 

 a fine of $200 and cost $1 was imposed. 



" I do not feel that I have caused any loss to the Newfoundland 

 Government by my action in sailing for home without a clearance, 

 especially as I expected to obtain one from the Cutter and took meas- 

 ures to secure such. My owners had give me imperative orders to 

 sail at first chance when loaded, and to run no risk about ice. The 

 year before, one of their vessels had been frozen in at Bay of Islands 

 and caused them a severe loss. I was very anxious to get away and 

 run no chances about the vessel getting in the ice, and under all the 

 circumstances, I pray you to remit the fine to my owners." 



And those were the circumstances. He had apparently reported 

 all right, and for failure to clear, under such circumstances as that, 

 he was fined 200 dollars. That sort of thing, permitted all up and 

 down such a coast as that, could be and would be vexatious almost 

 to the extent of hampering the exercise of the liberty itself. I can- 

 not help reading just a word from Captain Anstruther's report re- 

 garding the conditions down there, although considerable has already 

 been said about that. I find, however, that I have the wrong page 

 reference in my memorandum here, so that I am unable to refer to his 

 report at this moment. But Captain Anstruther describes, with 

 eloquence for a naval man, or perhaps because he was a naval man, 

 the tremendous difficulties under which the work of fishing is con- 

 ducted on that coast and in that bay, and the conflict with ice and 

 with storms, and the hardihood of the men who carry it on, whom he 

 regards as worthy of all commendation, and as not surpassed by the 

 fisher-folk or seamen of any nation in the entire world. Remember' 

 that the arms are liable to be frozen over early in the season, that the 

 vessel's whole winter's work is lost if she gets caught in the ice before 

 she gets away, and then consider this question of clearance, and the 

 burdensomeness of it is, we submit, most apparent. It ought to be 

 remembered that it is a good many miles from two of those fishing 

 grounds to any custom-house. This man in particular went to Wood 

 Island, where there was usually a revenue-cutter where he could get 

 clearance, and there being none, he went off. Any peremptory de- 

 cision that the fishermen of the United States must either report or 

 clear, it seems to us, ought to be guarded against. I call attention to 

 the fact that the modus of 1906 and 1907 provided that there should 

 be a report when physically possible. So that that distinction was 

 drawn, even as to the matter of report. And in 1908, Newfoundland 

 agreed to allow the fishery to be carried on as it had been carried on 

 in the previous years, which involved that very same thing. I agree 



