AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 1545 



dise in exchange for fish and ice, and for the further privilege of being 

 allowed to sell them small codfish ; suppose, I say, that an amendment 

 in these or similar words had been suggested to the members of the 

 High Joint Commission ; fancy the air of well-bred surprise with which 

 it would have been received by Earl Grey and Professor Bernard and 

 others. Imagine England free-trade England which forced commer- 

 cial intercourse upon China with cannon, asking for an arbitration to 

 determine on what price England, that lives by selling, will trade with 

 the inhabitants of other countries. 



I venture to express the belief that the ground which has been taken 

 here is not the ground that will be sustained by the English Government, 

 and that my friend, the British Agent, will receive from Her Majesty's 

 ministers the same instructions that I shall certainly receive from the 

 President of the United States, viz, that at the time when the Treaty of 

 Washington was negotiated 110 one dreamed that such claims as I have 

 been referring to would be made, and that neither government can afford 

 to insist upon or submit to anything of the kind, because it is contrary 

 to the policy of the British Empire, and contrary to the spirit of civil- 

 ization. If the language were at all equivocal these considerations 

 would be decisive, but with the express limits to your authority laid 

 down they hardly need to be asserted. 



The next question is whether the motion that has been made should 

 be decided by you at the present stage in your proceedings. We have 

 brought it before you at the earliest convenient opportunity. 



The case of the British Government was not orally opened, and in our 

 pleadings we had interposed a denial of the existence of any such juris- 

 diction. If the matter had been discussed in an opening we might have 

 replied to it, but as it was we could not. The case proceeded with the 

 introduction of evidence : Now, if the evidence offered in support of these 

 claims could have been objected to we should have interposed the objec- 

 tion that such evidence was inadmissible ; but we could not do that, and 

 why 1 ? Because the treaty expressly requires the Commission to receive 

 such evidence as either government may choose to lay before it. To avoid 

 the manifold inconvenience likely to result from discussing the admissibil- 

 ityof evidence, it was stipulated and we have allowed I suppose with the 

 approbation of the Commissioners every piece of evidence to come in 

 without objection. We conceived that we were under obligation to do 

 so. We could not bring the question up earlier, and we bring it up now, 

 just before our case commences, and say, that we ought to have it now 

 decided; first, as a matter of great convenience, because the course of 

 our evidence will be affected by your decision. There is much evidence 

 which we shall be obliged to introduce, if we are to be called upon to 

 waive the comparative advantages of mutual traffic, that would other- 

 wise be dispensed with, and that we think ought to be dispensed with. 

 Moreover, we maintain that we are entitled to have your decision now 

 on grounds of precedent. A precisely similar question arose before the 

 Geneva Arbitration. The United States made a claim for indirect or 

 consequential damages. That claim appeared in the case of the United 

 States, and its evidence which were filed on the loth of December. The 

 British case was filed at the same time, and on the 15th of the next 

 April Lord Teuterden addressed this note to the Arbitrators : 



GENEVA, April 15, 1872. 



The undersigned, agent of Her Britannic Majesty, is instructed by Her Majesty's 

 Government to state to Count Solopis, that, while presenting their Counter-Case, under 

 the special reservation hereinafter mentioned, in reply to the Case which has been pre- 

 sented on the part of the United States, they find it incumbent upon them to inform 

 the arbitrators that a misunderstanding has unfortunately arisen between Great Brit- 



