1578 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



visit Canadian ports and buy supplies, and enjoy ordinary commer- 

 cial privileges, unless such a right is withheld in our ports 

 955 from Canadian vessels. That right is denied by the Privy 

 Council and the Governor-General of the Canadian Dominion 

 upon the ground that it would be in effect a pro tanto abrogation of 

 the treaty of 1818. That contention is an error, in the opinion of this 

 department, because the treaty of 1818 has no application to the sub- 

 ject-matter." 



That is, to commercial privileges. 



Take the report of a Committee of the House of Representatives 

 in 1887, which appears on p. 142 of the British Case, the last para- 

 graph quoted : 



" The treaty of 1818 gave rights of fishing independent of general 

 commercial rights, although it may be said that as to shelter, repairs, 

 wood, and water, the treaty did give to fishermen certain commercial 

 rights, or rather a few rights of humanity. The treaty did not re- 

 strain the granting of the exercising of commercial rights. The 

 right, if it be a right, of an American to buy anything in Canada does 

 not come of the inshore fishing treaty of 1818." 



The same with regard to a report to the Senate, which appears at 

 the top of p. 143 of the British Case. It is also concisely stated at p. 

 143 by Mr. Evarts, in the debate in the United States Senate of the 

 24th January, 1887. It will be remembered that Mr. Evarts was 

 Secretary of State, and knew whereof he spoke, and he said this : 



" the settled opinion of the Government now is that the treaty of 

 1818 is nothing but a fishing treaty and not a commercial treaty at 

 all. It is regulative of the fishing interest as there described as the 

 subject-matter, and the basis of all the provisions that have entered 

 into that treaty. It is not a restriction of commerce at all; it is an 

 enlargement of mere fishing rights under the very limited allowance 

 of shelter and repairs and procuring wood." 



And so on, through pp. 143, 144, and parts of 145; so that Great 

 Britain knew that the United States did not claim that there were any 

 commercial privileges granted by the treaty of 1818 ; and yet it urges 

 upon this Tribunal that that is exactly what this question means 

 that the United States has submitted a question to you which has 

 been foreclosed long ago, and concerning which the United States 

 makes no contention whatever. 



I do not know what I can say more about that. Their contention 

 is that the United States has actually brought a question here which 

 a child could answer brought a fishing treaty here, and asked this 

 Tribunal if it could find commercial privileges in it when the 

 United States did not claim any commercial privileges under it. 

 These two great countries bringing this question across the seas, 

 would almost lead one to quote the old line : Parturiunt monies, nasce- 

 tur ridiculus mus. These two great mountains, Great Britain and 



