1602 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



"We will let the other half million be supposed to consist of smoked her- 

 riii" in boxes. How many barrels of herring does it take! Why, it 

 takes three or four hundred thousand. The herring sell for from two 

 to four dollars a barrel. It takes 250,000, 300,000, or 400,000 barrels 

 ot herring. :id a duty of a dollar is remitted upon each barrel, a duty 

 which would exclude them from our market if it were reimposed. Is 

 not that a sufficient compensation ? If you believe that our people catch 

 hen ing there to any considerable extent, is not that market from which 

 these people derive, according to their own showing, so large sums of 

 money, an equivalent? Remember, they say we catch a million to a 

 million and a half dollars' worth; they say they catch as many; they 

 say it nearly all goes to our market; the duty saved is a dollar a barrel; 

 and, according to their own figures, they must be reaping a golden har- 

 vest. Happy fisherman of New Brunswick ! By the statistics they earn 

 four or five times as much as the fishermen of Prince Edward Island, 

 and the witnesses say that they earn really two or three times as much 

 as the statistics show. They are receiving from a million, to a million 

 and a half dollars for fish sold chiefly in the markets of the United States, 

 and the saving in duty is several hundred thousand dollars. It is true 

 that we cannot find imported into the United States any such quantity 

 of herring ; still that is the account that they give of it. 



This brings me, gentlemen, to the question of the inshore mackerel 

 fishery : that portion of the Case which seems to me, upon the evidence, 

 to be the principal part, I might almost say the only part, requiring to 

 be discussed. Your jurisdiction is to ascertain the value of those fish- 

 eries for a period of twelve years from July 1, 1873, to July 1, 1885. 



Of those twelve years, five have already elapsed ; one fishing-year has 

 passed since the session of this Commission began. Inasmuch as the 

 twelve years will terminate before the beginning of the fishing-year in 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence for 1885, it is precisely correct to say, that five 

 years have elapsed and seven remain. It is of no consequence how 

 valuable these fisheries have been at periods antecedent to the treaty, 

 nor how valuable or valueless you may think they are likely to become 

 after the treaty shall have expired. The twelve years' space of time 

 limits your jurisdiction, and five-twelfths of that time is to be judged 

 of by the testimony as to the past. The results of the five years are be- 

 fore you. As to the seven remaining years, the burden of proof is upon 

 Her Majesty's Government to show what benefit the citizens of the 

 United States may reasonably be expected to derive during that time from 

 these fisheries. It will be for you to estimate the future by the past as 

 well HK you may be able. 



This is purely a business question. Although it arises between two 

 great governments, it is to be decided upon the same principles of evi- 

 dence as if it were a claim between two men, as if it was a question 

 much each skipper that enters the Gulf of St. Lawrence to fish for 

 I ought to pay out of his own pocket. We are engaged in 



hat the London Times has truly called a "great international law- 



aud we are to be governed by the same rules of evidence that 



i all judicial tribunals, not, of course, by the technicalities of 



ny particular system of law, but by those great general principles 



i prevail wherever, among civilized men, justice is administered. - 



H a claim is to prove his claim and the amount of it. This 



a question to be decided upon diplomatic considerations; it is a 



Ulon of proof. Money is to be paid for value received, and he who 



money is to show that the value has been received or will 



there are extravagant expectations on the one side, that is no 



