APPENDICES TO OEAL AKGUMENTS. 2287 



the duty of this Government to compare this result with the author- 

 ity imparted to the commission by the treaty, and to determine 

 whether it comported with, or transcended, such authority. 



It will not, I think, be questioned by Her Majesty's Government 

 that, upon the proofs and arguments, in whatever form submitted 

 by the two Governments to the commission, the practical measure of 

 the concession to the United States under article 18 of the treaty was 

 simply of a free and equal right to take part in the fisheries of the 

 Gulf of St. Lawrence within the 3-miles line, instead of being ex- 

 cluded therefrom, as we were under the convention of 1818. Nor do 

 I anticipate that you will find dissent on the part of Lord Salisbury 

 from the proposition, that the proofs fully show that the fishery thus 

 opened to us was the mackerel fishery within that line. While both 

 Governments must regret that the sure footing for a concurrence of 

 views between them, which might have been furnished by a careful 

 system of protocols of the conferences of the commission, is wanting, 

 yet the proofs on both sides leave this proposition in no doubt. In- 

 deed, since the publication by Parliament of the "Correspondence 

 respecting the Halifax Fisheries Commission " has disclosed the ad- 

 vices given from time to time to Her Majesty's Government by Mr. 

 Ford, the very intelligent and circumspect British agent in attend- 

 ance upon the commission, of the developments of the real subject for 

 valuation, there seems to be no room for any difference of views be- 

 tween the two Governments on this point. Thus, in his despatch of 

 September 10th, 1877, presenting the position upon the completion 

 of the British evidence, and before the opening of the proofs on the 

 part of the United States, Mr. Ford says, "the mackerel fishery 

 being that most extensively pursued by the Americans in British 

 waters, is the branch of the inquiry to which the greatest attention 

 was devoted." In giving, too, in the same despatch, the general re- 

 sult of any pecuniary measure of benefit to the United States fisher- 

 men from the concession of article 18 of the treaty, which the com- 

 pleted British proofs had presented as a basis for an award, Mr. 

 Ford makes it very apparent that the mackerel catch within the 

 3-mile line was the only item of appreciable importance. He says, 

 " according to the evidence adduced on the British side it seems be- 

 yond doubt that at least three-quarters of the mackerel taken on the 

 British North American coast -is caught within the 3-mile limit, 

 while, owing probably to the existence of sandy shoals at some dis- 

 tance from the shore, the catch of this fish in the United States 

 waters, north of the 39th parallel of north latitude, is principally 

 beyond that distance." Mr. Ford, also, upon the mere British proofs, 

 no less distinctly excludes the cod fishery as an element of the com- 

 putation of the value to us of the concession of article 18. He says, 

 a the cod fishery is pursued to a limited extent only by United States 

 fishermen within British territorial waters, and this is probably the 

 case with regard to hake, haddock, pollock, &c;" and, again, "the 

 evidence is somewhat vague as to the proportion of cod-fish taken by 

 Americans in British inshores, and it does not probably amount to 

 anything considerable, except on certain portions of the north shore 

 of the Gulf of St. Lawrence." 



Mr. Ford's despatch, upon a survey of the counterproofs of the 

 United States, which had just been completed, under the date of 

 the 30th October, 1877, presents the contention between the parties. 



