2296 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



way will seem to this Government to be thereby opened for a more 

 permanent and comprehensive settlement of the fishery interests of 

 the two countries than was reached by the Treaty of Washington. If 

 the present correspondence shall not result in this desired agreement, 

 and even if the opposing views which may be communicated by Her 

 Majesty's Government should affect our present judgment in the 

 very matter of the validity of the award, I cannot, in all candour, 

 hold out any expectation that this Government can ever recognise 

 the valuation of the countervailing concessions of articles 18, 19, and 

 21, involved in this award as a guide even, much less a standard, for 

 any future treatment of the fishery contentions, which the exigencies 

 of the situation as now left may require. 



Passing from the grave question which touches the essential ele- 

 ments of the award, upon considerations vital to the whole system of 

 arbitration, I desire you, further, to call Lord Salisbury's attention 

 to a particular point in the actual award; that is to say, the failure 

 of the three Commissioners to agree in any result, and the consequent 

 announcement of that inability, and the promulgation of the widely 

 different conclusions which the two concurring Commissioners and 

 the dissenting Commissioner had reached. 



The question presented on the face of the award of the Halifax 

 Commission, viz., whether the concurrence of the three Commis- 

 sioners in their award was required by the treaty, was made a matter 

 of public discussion, both in Great Britain and in the provinces, 

 before and during the sitting of the commission. In this discussion, 

 so far as it has fallen under my notice, the legal, political, and popu- 

 lar orgnns of opinion seemed quite positive that this unanimity was 

 required by the treaty. In this country the matter was little Consid- 

 ered, either because the British view of the subject was accepted, or 

 because complete confidence in our case, on its merits, su pervaded 

 any interest in the question. The point comes up now, for the first 

 time, for consideration between the two Governments, and will need 

 attention from either, only, in case Her Majesty's Government .should 

 fail to concur in the views of this Government which condemn the 

 award on the grave grounds already presented. 



The question involves nothing more than the interpretation of the 

 treaty, and is quite clear of any intermixture with the substance of 

 the award as satisfactory or unsatisfactory to either party. It turns, 

 first, upon the mere text of the treaty; and, second, upon the sur- 

 rounding circumstances and the different subjects to be treated by the 

 various boards of arbitration framed by the Treaty of Washington, 

 so far as they may be rightly resorted to in aid of a just construction 

 of the text. 



By the Treaty of Washington four boards are constituted for the 

 determination of certain matters to be submitted to their respective 

 decisions 



1. The Geneva Arbitration was composed of five members, in 

 regard to whose deliberations and conclusions article 2 of the trc.ity 

 expressly provides that " all questions considered by the tribunal, 

 including the final award, shall be decided by a majority of all the 

 arbitrators." 



2. A board of assessors under the Geneva Arbitration, in case the 

 tribunal should not award a gross sum, was to be composed of three 

 members. In the action of this board, article 10 of the treaty declares 



