2282 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



which, under the submission of the treaty, were to be measured and 

 compared, upon which these divergent results of their deliberations 

 were reached, the task of exposing the manner and extent in which, 

 in the opinion of the Government, the award transcends, the sub- 

 mission of the treaty would be much simpler. Indeed, in the view 

 which this Government takes of the narrow and well-defined ques- 

 tion submitted to the commission by the treaty, and of the indis- 

 putable result of the evidence pertinent thereto, there seems little 

 reason to doubt that if the protocols exhibited a trace even, of the ele- 

 ments of computation by which the two concurring Commissioners 

 made up their judgment, they would inevitably disclose the infirmity 

 of the actual award, and make any careful demonstration of the same 

 superfluous. 



I desire that you will first call Lord Salisbury's attention to the 

 nature of the question submitted to the Halifax Commission as ad- 

 justed through the diplomatic conferences of the Joint High Com- 

 mission, and expressed in the treaty. 



In the first place, the United States, in the fishery articles of the 

 Treaty of Washington, did not intend to, and did not, waive or cur- 

 tail in the least, the construction of the fishery and appurtenant privi- 

 leges accorded in the 1st article of the convention of 1818, as claimed 

 by them and actually possessed and enjoyed by them under such 

 claim, at and before the negotiation of the Treaty of Washington. 

 Neither the protocols of the conferences of the Joint High Commis- 

 sioners, nor the text of the Treaty negotiated by them, indicate any 

 intention of submitting to the interpretation of the Halifax Com- 

 mission the degree of privilege accorded to the United States by the 

 convention of 1818. On the other hand, it is manifest from the in- 

 structions to Her Majesty's High Commissioners, as well as from the 

 protocols of the conferences, that a settlement of the disputed inter- 

 pretation of the Convention of 1818 was contemplated as possible 

 only by the diplomatic deliberations of the Joint High Commission, 

 and such conclusions thereon as they might find it in their power 

 to embody in the Treaty of Washington. This task, however, they 

 did not undertake, but provided only for a temporary possessory 

 privilege that should supersede, during its continuance, any determi- 

 nation of such disputed interpretation. In this disposition of the 

 subject it would seem quite beyond the scope of the jurisdic- 

 1380 tion of the Halifax Commission to include, in any measure 

 of the additional privilege accorded to the United States by 

 article 18 of the Treaty of Washington, any contribution for the 

 enjoyment of the privileges accorded to the United States by the 

 convention of 1818, as claimed and actually possessed by them at 

 the time of the negotiation of the Treaty of Washington. A refer- 

 ence to document No. 15, filed with the Halifax Commission in sup- 

 port of the Case of Her Britannic Majesty's Government, and found 

 at p. 238 of the congressional publication of the proceedings of the 

 Halifax Commission, will substantiate this proposition. 



I do not regard this point of serious importance in the exposition 

 of the subject, except that I desire to preclude, in behalf of the 

 United States, any implication or argument hereafter to be drawn 

 from my passing over without criticism this possible element in the 

 admeasurement of the award. The United States still maintains 

 its interpretation of the privilege secured by the convention of 1818, 



