1486 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



No. 27. 

 TO THE QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. 



The humble memorial of the inhabitants of the county of Northumber- 

 land, in the Province of New Brunswick, in British North America, 

 most humbly showeth : 



That your memorialists approach Your Majesty with renewed assur- 

 ance of their loyalty and attachment to Your Majesty's person and Gov- 

 ernment. 



Your memorialists observe with deep anxiety, from Your Majesty's 

 royal speech at the opening of Parliament, and the late message of the 

 President of the neighboring republic to Congress, that negotiations are 

 now pending between Your Majesty's Government and that of the United 

 States, affecting the rights of fishery on these shores. 



The coast fisheries hitherto enjoyed by the people of this province, 

 spared to them by the Convention of 1818, although long an object of 

 jealousy to, and frequently intruded upon by, the people of the United 

 States, your memorialists have ever considered to be their exclusive 

 and unalienable right, in common with their fellow-subjects of Your 

 Majesty's Crown ; and they appreciate them accordingly. 



That these fisheries have not heretofore been prosecuted to an extent 

 commensurate with their importance, we pray Your Majesty not to 

 ascribe to any distaste or unfitness on the part of the people of this 

 province for the pursuit ; but rather to the sparseness of population and 

 absence of capital incidental to a new country, as well as to the unhappy 

 preference too long paid to the manufacture and export of timber. But 

 as these obstacles have gradually disappeared, the prosecution of the 

 fisheries has proportionally extended ; much capital is now embarked 

 in it; the people, at the cost of much time and labor, have just acquired 

 the necessary skill and experience for its profitable conduct ; and already 

 has it become an industrial pursuit of vital importance to the inhabitants 

 of these shores. Your memorialists would further add their conviction 

 that the time is not far distant when the inhabitants of this and the 

 neighboring counties must look to the produce of these fisheries for their 

 chief staple of export ; the question, therefore, of the alienation or pres- 

 ervation of these fisheries becomes to them one seriously affecting their 

 future progress or decline as a commercial people. 



Your memorialists would most humbly bring under Your Majesty's 

 notice that the trade between this province and the United States of 

 America has been conducted, for some years past, upon principles unfair 

 and oppressive to your memorialists ; Vor while the produce and manu- 

 factures of that country have been admitted into this province at a mod- 

 erate rate of duty, and in accordance with the policy of the Imperial 

 Government upon equal term with those of the United Kingdom, our 

 commodities have been met there by a high protecting tariff; and while 

 the ships of the United States are here permitted to be introduced to 

 receive a British register, and enter at once into competition with our 

 own, colonial ships are denied a market in the United States. 



In view of these evils, your memorialists would humbly submit to 

 Your Majesty that such a modification of the tariff and navigation laws 

 of the United States as would place the trade between that country and 

 these colonies on a footing of equality should be consideied merely as 

 an equitable arrangement, mutually beneficial, but by no means afford- 

 ing an adequate compensation for yielding up interests of such magni- 





