APPENDICES TO OKAL ARGUMENTS. 2299 



Government will regard the maintenance of entire good faith and 

 mutual respect in all dealings under the beneficent Treaty of Wash- 

 ington as of paramount concern, and will not assume to press its 

 own interpretation of the treaty, on this point, against the deliberate 

 interpretation of Her Majesty's Government to the contrary. 



You will promptly communicate these views to Her Majesty's 

 Government by delivering a copy of this despatch to Lord Salisbury, 

 and requesting an early attention to its contents. 

 I am, &c. 



(Signed) WM. M. EVARTS. 



No. 2. The Marquis of Salisbury to Mr. Welsh. 



FOREIGN OFFICE, November 7, 1878. 



SIR, Her Majesty's Government have given their attentive con- 

 sideration to the despatch relating to the proceedings of the Halifax 

 Fisheries Commission, addressed to you by Mr. Evarts, the Secretary 

 of State of the United States, a copy of which you were good enough 

 to place in my hands on the 10th ultimo ; and I have now the 

 1389 honour to make the following observations in reply, which I 

 shall feel greatly obliged by your communicating to Mr. 

 Evarts with the least possible delay : 



Her Majesty's Government fully appreciate the frankness with 

 which Mr. Evarts has requested you to communicate to them the 

 views of the Government of the United States on this question, and 

 it is their desire to reciprocate in the fullest degree the wish expressed 

 by Mr. Evarts to come to a complete and explicit understanding 

 between the two Governments as to the conformity of the award 

 made by the commission to the terms of the Treaty of Washington. 



I must, in the first instance, recall to your recollection the cir- 

 cumstances which led to the organisation of the Halifax Commission. 



The Reciprocity Treaty of the 5th June, 1854, between Great Brit- 

 ain and the United States, terminated in 1866, not from any desire 

 on the part of Her Majesty's Government to put a period to its stipu- 

 lations, but in consequence of the notice provided for in article 5 of 

 that treaty having been given by the United States Government. 

 The mutual privileges in respect to free fishing and free trade in 

 certain productions, which had under its operation been enjoyed 

 by the inhabitants of the United States and of Her Majesty's North 

 American Possessions, thus came to an end. The effect of this deter- 

 mination of the Reciprocity Treaty was to revive the difficulties 

 incidental to the Fisheries question; difficulties so well known to 

 both Governments that it is needless for me to enlarge upon them on 

 the present occasion. 



The danger, however, of collision between the fishermen of the 

 two nations began to manifest itself soon after the termination of 

 the Reciprocity Treaty; and Her Majesty's Government were anxious 

 to come to a speedy and satisfactory solution of the question. With 

 this view Her Majesty's Minister at Washington addressed, on the 

 26th January, 1871, a note to Mr. Fish, in which he stated that Her 

 Majesty's Government deemed it of importance to the good relations 

 which they were ever anxious should subsist and be strengthened be- 



