AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 1631 



maritime provinces? The boatmen of the bend of Prince Edward 

 Island ? The herring and squid catchers of Newfoundland ? We have 

 been told in prose and poetry that the dominion of Her Britannic Maj- 

 esty is one on which the sun never sets, and it is to the subjects of this 

 dominion, in its widest extent, that we have given the privileges granted 

 by the United States in this treaty. And I ask if, in equalizing this 

 privilege, the value of the privilege is one of the elements of your calcu- 

 lation, is not the extent to which those privileges are opened an equal 

 subject of valuation f 



1 know what my friends will say. They will say, of course, " It is ob- 

 vious that it is neither possible nor probable that any of the subjects of 

 Her Britannic Majesty will use these privileges except the inhabitants 

 of the Dominion. Well, I do not know that my friends have th'i right 

 to assume any such ground, after the brilliant exhibition of their closing 

 testimony. Do you not recollect what the confidential scientific adviser 

 of the gentlemen on the other side told you, that the time was coining, 

 had come, when the fishing industry of the world would be a common 

 fishery to the whole world ; when a skipper would go out of harbor with 

 an orographic chart of the coast in one hand, and a thermometer in the 

 other, to measure the variations of zone-temperature; when he would, 

 day by day, learn the condition of the controversy between the Labrador 

 Arctic current and the Gulf stream ; when, by a system of telegraph and 

 signal stations, there would be a new meaning given to the Scripture, 

 " Deep calleth unto deep " ; that Labrador would speak to Newfound- 

 land, and Newfoundland to Nova Scotia, and Nova Scotia to Cape Cod ; 

 and that wherever the fishes were, there would the fishermen of the 

 world be gathered together ! I cannot accept that prophecy in all its 

 fullness. I know it has been said very often that fish diet is a wonderful 

 stimulant to the mental powers. I think since we have been discussing 

 this case, we have found that mackerel, especially, has a most wonderful 

 efl'ect upon the arithmetical faculties of the intellect ; that it stimulates 

 the imagination until it sets all the powers of calculation at defiance ; 

 and I am satisfied that the princely fortune that was supposed to have 

 been made by the boy in the Arabian fable out of his basket of eggs, 

 which were unfortunately destroyed before he realized it, is nothing com- 

 pared with the profits that my friend from Prince Edward Island, through 

 cross examination, can develop from an ordinary catch of four hundred 

 barrels of mackerel. I presume that my friends will not allow me to 

 assume, even upon their own testimony, that this millennial fishery will 

 he in perfect working order until the Treaty of 1871 has expired, and 

 they will therefore insist that it is neither possible nor probable that 

 any of the subjects of Her Britannic Majesty, except the inhabitants of 

 the Dominion, can ever use these privileges. Suppose I grant that, 

 what then ? I find in the British Case a very elaborate statement of a 

 very sound principle, page 34: 



It is possible, and even probable, that the United States fishermen may avail them- 

 selves of the privilege of fishiug in Newfoundland inshore waters to a much larger ex- 

 tent than they do at present ; but even if they should do so, it would not relieve them 

 from the obligation of making the just payment for a right which they h.ive acquired, 

 subject to the condition of making that payment. The case may not be-inaptly illus- 

 trated by the somewhat analogous one of a tenancy of shooting or fishing privileges ; 

 it is not because the tenant fails to exercise the rights which he has acquired by virtue 

 of his lease that the proprietor should be debarred from the recovery of his rent.. 



I think it will take more than the very large ability and ingenuity of 

 the British counsel to show any difference between the two cases. If 

 the American fisherman is bound to pay for the inshore fisheries of New- 

 foundland, which he does not use, on the principle of tenancy, why 



