2094 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



" The citizens of the United States are thus by clear implication 

 absolutely precluded from the use of the shore in the direct act of 

 catching fish." 



The Tribunal will observe that, examining the treaty of 1818 and 

 the treaty of 1871, he declares that absolute freedom in the matter 

 of -fishing in territorial waters is granted, and the right to use the 

 shore for only specified purposes, and not in general. He finds, as 

 a matter of fact, that the American fishermen went on shore; and 

 therefore, he says, they were exceeding their treaty right. 



He next proceeds to the second question, and upon that he says: 



" But it cannot be claimed, consistently with this right of partici- 

 pation in common with the British fishermen, that the United States 

 fishermen have any other, and still less that they have greater rights 

 than the British fishermen had at the date of the treaty." 



I am now reading^about two-thirds of the way down p. 685 : 



" If, then, at the date of the signature of the Treaty of Washington, 

 certain restraints were, by the municipal law, imposed upon the Brit- 

 ish fishermen, the United States fishermen were, by the express terms 

 of the treaty, equally subjected to those restraints, and the obligation 

 to observe in common with the British the then existing local laws 

 and regulations, which is implied by the words ' in common? attached 

 to the United States citizens as soon as they claimed the benefit of 

 the treaty." 



He then cites Mr. Marcy's circular as expressing that view, the 

 circular which related to laws which were in force at the time the 

 treaty of 1854 took effect. Then he says, on p. 686 : 



u I have the honor to enclose a copy of an act passed by the Colonial 

 Legislature of Newfoundland, on the 27th March, 1862 .... and 

 a copy of .... the consolidated statutes of Newfoundland, passed 

 in 1872." 



1267 Then he says : 



" These regulations, which were in force at the date of the 

 Treaty of Washington, were not abolished, but confirmed by the sub- 

 sequent statutes, and are binding under the treaty upon the citizens 

 of the United States in common with British subjects." 



He abandons the Sunday regulation passed in 1876 after the treaty 

 of 1871 took effect and which was really the only thing in the minds 

 of the Newfoundland fishermen, and plants himself strictly upon the 

 proposition, not that the United States was subject to any subsequent 

 legislation, but that the treaty made them subject to regulations 

 which existed at the time the treaty was made ; and in order to leave 

 no doubt whatever of what he means, and the limit and force of it, 

 he proceeds in the last paragraph of his letter on p. 687 to say : 



" Mr. Evarts will not require to be assured that Her Majesty's 

 Government, while unable to admit the contention of the United 



