AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 1637 



employed, and the result of that combination is the money to which they 

 are entitled. 



So also with the consequential damages, with regard to the destruc- 

 tion of fish, trawling, seining, and all those things with which you have 

 nothing to do. I think I can reply to the whole of that by a very 

 pithy sentence, uttered by one of your citizens, who was very famous, 

 the late Joseph Howe, in a speech made in my country in regard to the 

 fisheries here. He said, " As for the destruction of the fisheries, when 

 one thought that the roes of thirty cod supply all the waste of the 

 American, British, and colonial fisheries, it was not worth while to dis 

 cuss that question"; and I do not think it is, either. Because all those 

 arguments apply to the treaty. They are very good reasons why the 

 exchange never should have been made at all, why American fishermen 

 never should have been admitted at all, why the treaty should never 

 have been made; but they are arguments which cannot be employed in 

 the consideration of the question submitted to you the value of the 

 fishery. 



And now, with regard to this question of consequences, there is but 

 one other illustration to which I will refer, and I will be done. I find, 

 at the close of the British testimony, an elaborate exhibit of 160 lights, 

 fog-whistles, and humane establishments used by United States fisher- 

 men on the coast of the Dominion, estimated to have cost in erection, 

 from the Sambro light-house, built in 1758, to the present day, $832,138, 

 and for annual maintenance, $268,197. I scarcely know whether to con- 

 sider this serious; but there it is, and there it has been placed, either 

 as the foundation for a claim, or to produce an effect. Now, if this 

 Dominion has no commerce, if no ships bear precious freight upon the 

 dangerous water of the gulf, or hazard valuable cargoes in the straits 

 which connect it with the ocean, if no traffic traverses the imperial 

 river which connects the Atlantic with the great lakes, if this fabulous 

 fishery, of which we have heard so much, is carried on only in boats so 

 small that they dare not venture out of sight of land, and the fisher- 

 men need no other guiding and protecting light than the light stream- 

 ing from their own cabin- windows on shore; if, in short, this Dominion, 

 as it is proudly called, owes nothing to the protection of its commerce 

 and the safety of its seamen, if these humane establishments are not 

 the free institutions of a wise and provident government, but charitable 

 institutions, to be supported by the subscriptions of those who use 

 them, then the Government of the Dominion can collect its $200,000 by 

 levying light-dues upon every vessel which seeks shelter in its harbors 

 or brings wealth into its ports. But, if, in the present age of civiliza- 

 tion, when a common humanity is binding the nations of the world 

 together every day by mutual interests, mutual cares, and privileges 

 equally shared, the Dominion repeals her light-dues, in obedience to the 

 common feeling of the whole world, with what justice can that govern- 

 ment ask you, by a forced construction of this treaty, to reimpose this 

 duty, in its most exorbitant proportions and its most odious form, upon 

 us, and upon us alone ! 



But that is not, perhaps, the question I should ask you. I should 

 ask, and I do ask, where do you find, in Article 18 of the treaty, among 

 the advantages which the Treaty of 1871 gives us, and authorizes you 

 to value, any such "advantage" as the use of light-houses and fog- 

 whistles? And if you decided, and properly decided, that you could 

 not take into consideration the advantages of commercial intercourse, 

 purchasing bait and supplies, and the privilege of transshipping, be- 

 cause they were not given by the treaty, identified as they were with 



