AWARD OP THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 1597 



taken is substantially a fishing for it. I have heard that suggestion 

 hinted at in the course of our discussions, but plainly, it seems to me, it 

 cannot be sound. We pay for herring by the barrel, for squid arid cap- 

 lin by the hundred, and the inhabitants of the island will go out to sea 

 as far as to the French Islands, there to meet American schooners, and 

 to induce them to come to their particular localities that they may be 

 the ones to catch the bait for them. It is true that the British Case ex- 

 presses the apprehension that the frozen-herring trade may be lost to 

 the inhabitants of Newfoundland in consequence of the provisions of 

 the treaty. It is said that " it is not at all probable that, possessing 

 the right to take the herring and capliu for themselves on all parts of 

 the Newfoundland coast, the United States fishermen will continue to 

 purchase bait as heretofore, and they will thus prevent the local fisher- 

 men, especially those of Fortune Bay. from engaging in a very lucra- 

 tive employment, which formerly occupied them during a portion of the 

 winter season, for the supply of the United States market." One of 

 the British witnesses, Joseph Tierney, whose testimony is on page 371, 

 in speaking of this matter of getting bait, says, in reply to the ques- 

 tion, " How do you get that bait ?" u Buy it from persons that go and 

 catch it and sell it for so much a barrel. The American fishermen are 

 not allowed to catch their own bait at all. Of course, they may jig 

 their own squid around the vessel/' And in reply to my question, 

 " What would be done if they tried to catch bait P the answer is, 

 " They are pretty rough customers. I don't know what they would, 

 do." So it appears that American fishermen not only do not catch bait, 

 but are not allowed to catch it. They buy the bait, and that, to my 

 inind, is the end of the question. So far as the herring trade goes, we 

 could not, if we were disposed to, carry it on successfully under the pro- 

 visions of the treaty, for this herring trade is substantially a seining 

 from the shore a strand fishing, as it is called and we have no right 

 anywhere conferred by this treaty to go ashore and seine herring any 

 more than we have to establish fish-traps. I remember brother Thom- 

 son and Professor Baird were at issue on the question whether we had a 

 right to do this. Brother Thomson was clearly right and Professor Baird 

 was mistaken. We have not acquired any right under the treaty to go 

 ashore for any purpose anywhere on the British territories except to 

 dry nets and cure fish. I do not think that I ought to spend more time 

 over the case of Newfoundland than this, except to call your attention 

 to the circumstance that, in return for these few squid jigged at night, 

 the islanders obtain an annual remission of duties averaging upwards 

 of $50,000 a year. 



We have been kindly furnished, in connection with the British affida- 

 vits upon page 123, Appendix A, with a statement showing the duties 

 remitted upon exports from Newfoundland to the United States since 

 the Treaty of Washington, and their annual average is made out to be 

 $50,940.45. I submit to the Commission whether we do not pay, upon 

 any view of political economy, a thousand fold for all the squid that our 

 people jig after dark. 



Let it not, however, for a moment be supposed that because I took up 

 the case of Newfoundland for convenience' sake, as it is presented sepa- 

 rately, that I regard it as a distinct part of the case. The United States 

 has made no treaty with the Island of Newfoundland, which has not yet 

 hoisted the flag of the "Lone Star." When she does, perhaps we shall 

 be happy to enter into treaty relations with her; but we know at pres- 

 ent only Her Majesty's Government. We are dealing with the whole 



