ARGTTMENT OF ELIHU ROOT. 2211 



passing their laws and fixing their light dues, and so on, are not 

 studying the treaty of 1818. 



I have been considering this as if there were no question of dis- 

 crimination. I do not think there is any strict right any lawful 

 right to exact against our will these dues from us, whether there be 

 discrimination or not ; but I have one observation to make upon the 

 position taken by my learned friends on the other side, as to dis- 

 crimination. 



Their view is that although the statutes of Newfoundland do not 

 impose these light dues upon their own fish ing- vessels, nevertheless 

 that is not a discrimination, because they say all citizens of New- 

 foundland have paid taxes. Newfoundland is supported they say by 

 a system of indirect taxation, and every citizen of Newfoundland 

 pays his share. 



Now, what does happen when light dues are imposed by legisla- 

 tion? Why, either the Legislature making the law fixes a scale of 

 dues sufficient to pay the whole expense, or it apportions the expense 

 in a way which it deems to be equitable and reasonable between the 

 country at large and the owners of the ships, so that that part of the 

 burden shall be borne by the country which is proportionate to the 

 benefit the country gets to its commerce its prosperity, and wealth, 

 and that part of the burden shall be borne by the shipowners which is 

 appropriate to the special benefit the shipowners get, and the two 

 are quite distinct things. 



Many countries take the entire burden. Canada, for example, takes 

 the entire burden. She charges no light dues. She goes so far as 

 this: that among the lighthouses along this rocky coast about the 

 Straits of Belleisle, Canada, on Newfoundland's territory, maintains, 

 I think it is seven, of the lighthouses at her own expense for the 

 benefit of her transatlantic steam-ship service. There the benefit to 

 the countrv is deemed K) irreat that she maintains her own lighthouses 



r^ 



without charging the vessels anything, and even maintains light- 

 houses on the shores of the other colony. 



Now, when there is an apportionment of the burden, the citizen of 

 Newfoundland who pays through this system of indirect taxation by 

 paying a little higher price for the things that he uses, who pays his 

 share of the burden that is covered by general taxation, is not pay- 

 ing any share of the other burden that it casts specially upon the 

 ships. They are two quite different things, and when he is exempted 

 from his share of the burden that ought appropriately to be defrayed 

 by the ships, he is exempted from something that is not made up for 

 by his having to pay his share of the burden commensurate with the 

 benefit which his country gets and which he gets as a citizen of the 

 country. One man lives in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and owns a 

 fishing-vessel that comes to the Newfoundland coast; another man 



