AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 1589 



of the United States by the Treaty of Washington are of greater value 

 than those accorded to the subjects of Her Britannic Majesty ; and if so, 

 how much is the difference, in, money? The concessions made by each 

 government to the other in the treaty were freely and voluntarily made. 

 If it should turn out (as I do not suppose it will) that in any respect the 

 making of those concessions has been injurious to the subjects of Her 

 Majesty, you are not on that account to render an award of damages 

 against the United States. The two governments decided that they 

 would grant certain privileges to the citizens of one and the subjects of 

 the other. Whether those privileges may be detrimental to the party by 

 whom they have been conceded is no concern of ours. That was dis- 

 posed of when the treaty was made. Our case before this tribunal is a 

 case, not of damages, but of an adjustment of equivalents between con- 

 cessions freely made on the one side and on the other. It follows from 

 this consideration, gentlemen, that all that part of the testimony which 

 has been devoted to showing that possibly under certain circumstances 

 American fishermen, either in the exercise of their treaty rights, or in 

 trespassing beyond their rights, may have done injury to the fishing 

 grounds, or to the people of the provinces, is wholly aside from the sub- 

 ject-matter submitted for your decision. The question whether throw- 

 ing over gurry hurts fishing-grounds the question whether vessels lee- 

 bow boats and all matters of that sort, which at an early period of the 

 investigation loomed up occasionally, as if they might have some impor- 

 tance, may be dismissed from our minds ; for, whether the claims made 

 in that respect are well founded or not, no authority has been vested in 

 this tribunal to make an award based upon any such grounds. That 

 which you have been empowered to decide is the question, to what ex- 

 tent the citizens of the United States are gainers by having, for the term 

 of twelve years, liberty to take fish on the shores and coasts of Her 

 Majesty's dominions without being restricted to any distance from the 

 land. It is the right of inshore fishing. In other words, the removal 

 of a restriction by which our fishermen were forbidden to come within 

 three miles of the shore for fishing purposes ; and that is all. No rights 

 to do anything upon the land are conferred upon the citizens of the 

 United States, under this treaty, with the single exception of the right 

 to dry nets and cure fish on the shores of the Magdalen Islands, if we 

 did not possess that before ; no right to land for the purpose of seining 

 from the shore ; no right to the "strand fishery," as it has been called; 

 no right to do anything except, water-borne on our vessels, to go within 

 the limits which had been previously forbidden. 



When I commenced the investigation of this question I supposed 

 that it was probable that an important question of international law 

 would turn out to be involved in it, relative, of course, to the so-called 

 headland question, which has been the subject of so much discussion 

 between the two governments for a long series of years: but the evi- 

 dence that has been introduced renders this question not of the slight- 

 est importance, and inasmuch as it is a question which you are not em- 

 powered, except incidentally, to decide, a question eminently proper to 

 be passed upon between the governments directly, 1 presume you will 

 rejoice with me in finding that it is not practically before us, and that 

 we need not trouble ourselves concerning it. If it had appeared in this 

 case that there was fishing carried on to any appreciable extent within 

 the large bays, more than six miles wide at the headlands, and at a dis- 

 tance of more than three miles from the contour of the shores of those 

 bays, the United States would have contended that their citizens, iu 

 common with all the rest of mankind, were entitled to fish in such great 



