2286 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



With these opinions and these experiences, on the one side and on 

 the other, the High Commissioners undertook an adjustment of the 

 opposing interests upon the principle of obliterating the sea-line 

 between the fishermen of the two countries, and finding such com- 

 pensation for this concession as might seem equal and just. 



In the conferences of the Joint High Commission, it is very appar- 

 ent that our High Commissioners regarded the obliteration of the 

 sea-line as of no great pecuniary value to our fishing industry. 

 According!}', they offered but 1,000,000 dollars for this concession in 

 perpetuity. No doubt politically, and in the interest of good neigh- 

 bourhood, this Government did regard, and at all times would regard, 

 the restoration of the relations between the two countries in the 

 common enjoyment of these fisheries, to the ancient footing of the 

 treaty of 1783, as most grateful in sentiment and as a most valuable 

 guarantee against any renewal of strife. These considerations, for 

 reasons already stated, could not be worthily entertained upon either 

 side as an element of the pecuniary measure of the privileges to be 

 accorded. 



In these conferences it is not less apparent that Her Majesty's High 

 Commissioners recognised the possession of pur market for the prod- 

 uct of the privincial fisheries as the one thing essential to the pros- 

 perity of those fisheries, which could not be dispensed with or re- 

 placed by any money purchase. This commercial advantage was, of 

 course, both practically and suitably to the dignity of the negotia- 

 tion measurable in money. It seemed to our High Commissioners to 

 exceed in value to the provinces, as it unquestionably did in 

 1382 loss to us, any reasonable estimate of the value of the privilege 

 our fishermen were to acquire. This basis, however, of free- 

 dom of the fishing grounds to our fishermen, and freedom of our 

 market to the fishermen of the provinces, in simplicity and national 

 equivalency, presented advantages which might well have dispensed 

 with any nice calculation of comparative pecuniary values in the 

 exchange. 



Her Majesty's High Commissioners, however, thought that this 

 exchange of privileges, even with the added concession on our part, 

 of throwing open to the provincial fishermen unrestricted participa- 

 tion in the valuable inshore fisheries of our own coasts above the 

 thirty-ninth parallel, left still a claim for a pecuniary make-weight 

 in favour of the provinces in the nature of owelty of partition. This 

 led to the constitution of the Halifax Commission to consider and 

 decide the single question whether, and how much, the pecuniary 

 measure of the new fishing privilege opened to the United States 

 fishermen exceeded the pecuniary measure of the new fishing privi- 

 lege opened to the provincial fishermen, and of the possession of our 

 market, free of duty, for all the products of the provincial fisheries. 

 This difference between the two pecuniary valuations was in the 

 nature of the problem no less than by the terms of the treaty to be 

 expressed and paid in money. 



Upon the conclusion of the labours of the Halifax Commission, 

 and the communication of the concurring judgment of the two Com- 

 missioners, awarding the sum of 5,500,000 dollars as the amount to 

 be paid by the United States under the fishery articles of the treaty, 

 and the judgment of the dissenting Commissioner that no sum what- 

 ever was payable by the United States under those articles, it became 



