1582 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



been adduced before the Commission which has shown that those rights 

 were exercised by the United States entirely irrespective of treaties. 



Before the Treaty of 1854, when we had nothing but the Treaty of 

 1818 to stand upon, which, as a treaty, certainly did not give us any of 

 those rights, we exercised them. We exercised them also irrespective 

 of and never by virtue of the Treaty of 1854. We exercised them in 

 the interval between 1866 and 1871, as we are exercising them now. 

 The court will not be able to find any connection between the treaties 

 and the exercise of those rights. They have never been exercised the 

 more or the less by reason of any treaties. It is not incumbent upon 

 us to show why we are in the exercise of those rights. It is rather a 

 .speculative inquiry on the part of the British counsel as to where we 

 got them, or whether we have them at all. Suppose I were to concede 

 that we had no right to buy bait or ice or supplies, or transship cargoes 

 anywhere on these coasts, certainly that ends the argument, because 

 we cannot be called upon to pay for something which we have not got. 

 If the proper construction of the Treaty of 1818 is that fishermen have 

 no right as fishermen and by the general law, irrespective of the consent 

 of the Crown, to buy bait, ice, and supplies, and transship cargoes in 

 British dominions, then I concede that, as regards American fishermen 

 fishing within the three-mile limit, we have not those rights. Why are 

 we, then, in the exercise of them I In that case, by the concession of 

 the Crown. There is, however, no statute against fishermen buying 

 bait, obtaining supplies, bartering or transshipping fish, if they comply 

 with the fiscal regulations of the government regarding all trade and 

 commerce. If a fisherman has violated no statute or rule respecting 

 trade, commerce, and navigation in this realm, there is no statute which 

 can condemn him, because he is a fisherman, for having bought bait 

 and supplies and transshipped cargoes. So long as there is no statute 

 prohibiting it, our fishermen have gone on exercising that privilege, not 

 believing they were excluded from it by the Treaty of 1818, whether 

 they were correct or not. It is in that view only that the facts regard- 

 ing seizures are of any importance ; but yet we may make our answer 

 at once and say, whether we have the right to do those things or not, 

 we do not pretend that it was given to us by the Treaty of 1871. Your 

 honors will not be able to find it included under Article 18 of that 

 treaty. But it. is ever satisfactory to be able to account for all the sur- 

 rounding circumstances of any question. It seems there was a stat- 

 nte parsed in 1819, 59 George III, generally against foreign vessels 

 which shall be found fishing, or be found having fished, or be found 

 preparing to fish within the prescribed limits. The statute reaches be- 

 fore and after the act. It is not necessary that fishermen should be 

 taken in the act of fishing. That would be a statute very difficult to 

 interpret and very easy to evade, which required that fishermen should 

 be taken in the act of fishing. So the statute says, if a foreign fisher- 

 * found having fished, or in the act of fishing, or preparing for 

 Ishing within the prescribed waters, he is to l>e treated as 

 an offender. We see no objection to that statute. The preparing to 

 lh IM a step in the process of fishing. 



But the tine construction of that statute is of very little importance. 



unly it must be meant that the act prepared for must have been 



1, for it cannot be supposed for one moment that Great Britain in- 



say that no foreign vessels, French or American, should come 



rpvmces and buy bait lor the purpose of fishing off the Grand 



: or the coast of Greenland. If this province got a reputation for 



having some bait which certain kinds of fish off Greenland swallow with 





