AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 1595 



failed in the suit, treble costs were to be awarded against him ; while, 

 it he succeeded in the suit, and the presiding judge certified that there 

 was probable cause for the seizure, he was to be entitled to no costs, and 

 the officer making the seizure was not to be liable to any action. That 

 act, only very slightly modified, bat with most of its offensive provisions 

 still retained, was found on the statutes of Nova Scotia as late as the 

 year 18G8, and I am not aware that it has been repealed to-day. The 

 construction put upon it in this province was, that a man who came into 

 a British harbor to buy bait with which to catch fish in the deep sea, 

 was guilty of ;t preparing to fish," and that it was an offense under the 

 act to prepare within British territorial waters to carry on a deep sea 

 fishery. 



Such, gentlemen, was the condition of things which led the fishermen 

 of the United States to attribute so much importance to the three-mile 

 restriction. We know to-day that all this has passed away. We know 

 that such pretensions are as unlikely ever to be repeated as they are 

 sure never again to be submitted to. And why do I refer to them ? 

 Not, certainly, to revive any roots of bitterness; not, certainly, to com- 

 plain of anything so long gone by ; but because it is absolutely indis- 

 pensable for you to understand the posture of this question historically, 

 in order that you may be aware how different the question we are trying 

 to-day is from the question which has had such importance heretofore. 



If the three-mile limit off the bend of Prince Edward Island, and 

 down by Margaree, where our fishermen sometimes fish a week or two in 

 the autumn (and those are the two points to which almost all the evi- 

 dence of inshore fishing in this case relates) if the three-mile limit had 

 been marked out by a line of buoys in those places, and onr people 

 could have fished where they had a right to, under the law of nations 

 and the terms of the Convention of 1818, nobody would have heard any 

 complaint. Certainly it is most unjust, after a question has had such a 

 history as this after the two nations have been brought to the very 

 verge of war with each other in consequence of disputes based upon, 

 such claims as I have referred to certainly, now that those claims are 

 abandoned, it is most unjust to say to us, "Because you complained 

 of these things, therefore you must have thought the right to catch 

 m-nckerel in ten or fifteen fathoms of water, within three miles of the bight 

 of the island, was of great national importance." We are not prepared 

 to enter fairly into a discussion of the present question until it is per- 

 ceived how different it is from the one to which I have been alluding. 

 Of course our fishermen were alarmed and excited, and indignant, when 

 the things were done to which I have referred. Of course it was true 

 that if such claims were to be maintained they must abandon fishing in 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence altogether. And not only did they feel that 

 there was an attempt, unjustly and unlawfully, to drive them out of a 

 valuable fishery which had belonged to them and their forefathers ever 

 since vessels came here at all, but there was also, with reference to it, 

 a sense of wrong and outrage, and the fishermen of New England, like 

 the rest of the people of New England, although long suffering and 

 slow to wrath, have ever been found to be a race " who 'know their 

 rights, and, knowing, dare maintain." But when these claims are aban- 

 doned, as they have been now, there remains simply the question, what 

 is the value of fishing within three miles of the shore of the British ter- 

 ritories 1 And this brings me to some of the immediate questions which 

 we have to discuss. 



In the first place, I suppose I may as well take up the case of New- 

 foundland, The case of Newfoundland, as I understand it, is almost 



