2100 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



suance of a letter from the Secretary of State, Mr. Fish, in 1870, to 

 the collectors of customs, in order that they might communicate with 

 the American fishing vessels as they went out. The circular related 

 exclusively and solely to the non-treaty coast, and it had no relation 

 whatever, nor did a word in it have any relation whatever to the 

 conduct of American fishermen, the obligations or duties or rights of 

 American fishermen on the treaty coast, except as that might he con- 

 tained in the fact that there was a quotation from the first article 

 of the treaty of 1818, by way of stating an exception from the subject- 

 matter. The circular was sent by Mr. Boutwell upon the request of 

 the Secretary of State, contained in a letter of the 23rd April, 1870, 

 which appears at p. 187 of the American Counter-Case Appendix. 

 Of course the Secretary of State is the Minister of Foreign Affairs 

 of the United States, and it is his business to express the views of 

 the Government of the United States upon international questions, 

 and not the business of the Secretary of the Treasury. Therefore the 

 Secretary of the Treasury, in issuing a circular to his collectors of 

 customs, in order to reach the fishermen, upon international ques- 

 tions, on the request of the Secretary of State, cannot be supposed to 

 have intended to set up for himself an inconsistent position, or to do 

 anything other than that which the Secretary of State had requested 

 him to do. There is the strongest kind of presumption that he was, 

 in following the Secretary of State, undertaking to do what the 

 Secretary of State requested. I will ask the Tribunal to kindly 

 consider that letter of Mr. Fish, the Secretary of State : 



" Hon. George S. Boutwell, 



" Secretary of the Treasury. 

 " Sir, April 23, 1870. 



"I have the honor to enclose a copy of House of Representatives 

 Ex. Doc. No. 239. 2d session, 41st Congress, and of a communication 

 of the 14th instant, from the British Minister, relating to the meas- 

 ures adopted, and proposed to be adopted, by the Authorities of the 

 Dominion of Canada, for the exclusion from certain of the imhore 

 fisheries within the jurisdiction thereof, of foreign -fisherman. I 

 oeg leave to suggest, that with a view to fully acquainting citizens 

 of the United States interested in the fishing business in waters ad- 

 jacent to the Dominion of Canada, these facts that a circular be 

 issued at your earliest convenience to Collectors of the Custom- at 

 the ports of the United States in which fishing vessels are fitted out 

 or to which they resort, enclosing to each of them, a sufficient number 

 of copies of a printed notification for distribution among the fisher- 

 men and the business firms interested in the subject, setting forth 

 the material facts presented in the enclosed papers, and put fun/ 1 

 on their guard against committing acts which would render them 

 liable to the penalties prescribed by Canadian Laws, respecting in- 

 shore fisheries not open to the fishermen of the United States und<T 

 the 1st Article of the treaty between the United States and Great 

 Britain of 181S." 



