1576 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



would be passed, because the number of persons interested in that traf- 

 fic ^rith American fishermen is very great, and they are voters ; they 

 have even in Newfoundland broken their chains and become a sober and 

 saving people since they came to have cash of their own, from their 

 trading with Americans. 



I doubt whether the Canadian Government will be encouraged, how- 

 ever strong may be the wave of politics, to meet the people of the 

 various constituencies and insist on this American traffic being entirely 

 cut off. If they do it, I doubt whether Great Britain would sanction it, 

 and if Great Britain did allow it, then it becomes at once a question 

 between the two governments. Is that a course fair and right, in ac- 

 cordance with the comity of nations, in accordance with practices which 

 are earlier tban when the first Disciples threw their nets into the sea of 

 Galilee is not such a course an interference with a right practiced from 

 earliest times, and without good reason for the prohibition! You may 

 put regulations on us so that our fishermen shall not be smugglers in 

 disguise, and so that merchants shall not come in the disguise of fisher- 

 men ; but to prohibit American fishermen from purchasing bait and 

 supplies, not in case of necessity merely, but as part of the plan of their 

 trade, and transshipping cargoes, would be a violation of the spirit which 

 has governed the commercial relations between the two empires. 



1 would therefore present a summary of the matter thus: The only 

 matter of dispute between Great Britain and the United States in the 

 Treaty of 1783 related to the inshore fisheries, I mean the right to catch 

 fish more or less near the British coast, and in addition to that to cure 

 and dry fish. The Treaty of 1783 acknowledged the general right. 



The Treaty of 1818 gave us certain places, which were named, where 

 we could exercise those fishing rights, and stated certain places where 

 we could not exercise them ; but it did not undertake to deal with the 

 commercial side of the fisheries question. The Treaty of 1854 was the 

 same: it gave a general right to tish within these Dominions, and to 

 land and dry them in certain places. The only question of late has been 

 whether Great Britain lias the right, without any treaty, to exclude us 

 from three miles of the coast. That was Mr. Adams's famous argument 

 with Earl Bathurst. We said in the Treaty of 1818 that, as a right, we 

 no longer claimed it. That is the meaning of the treaty that having 

 claimed it as a right inherent in us, either because we did not lose it at 

 the time of the Revolution, or from the nature of fisheries, or on some 

 )ther ground, we no longer claimed it as a right which cannot be taken 

 ay Ironi us but at the point of the bayonet. But while we say we 

 >t no within the three miles to fish without permission, it must not 

 that vessels cannot go there for shelter and repairs and for wood 

 ater, but may be put under such regulations as will prevent us 

 ff anything further. It is entirely a matter for Great Britain 

 me what regulations we should be placed under, in those re- 

 she has seen fit to make none. The Statute 59, George III., 

 .o carry out the Treaty of 1818, prohibited fishing or preparing 

 certain boundaries. A decision has been rendered in one 

 that buying bait was " preparing" to fish. In another province 

 r u decision was rendered directly the way. 



llmt, h .wever is a local matter altogether. The decision rendered 



uwick was that the prohibition of preparing to fish" must 



joolj to those who intended to fish within the prohibited degree; 



< heb v'ngof bait, whether it was a step in preparing lo fish or 



n \n, !, 1" f'T un ess the fisbiD g iteelf ironld be an offense. If 



n Derica n bought bait here to go off to Greenland or to the Mediter- 



to flab, it could not be considered an offense. Great Britain can- 



