1638 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



the use of the fishery, how can you be asked even to take this prepos- 

 erous claim into consideration ? If the principle laid down by the 

 British Case (p. 13) is true, " It is submitted, that in order to estimate 

 the advantages thereby derived, respectively, by subjects of the United 

 States and of Great Britain, the following basis is the only one which 

 it is possible to adopt, under the terms of the first portion of Article 18 

 of the Treaty of Washington of 1871, viz, that the value of the privi- 

 leges granted to each country, respectively, by Articles 18, 19, and 21, of 

 that Treaty, which icere not enjoyed under the 1st Article of the Convention 

 of the 20th October, 1818, is that which the Commission is constituted 

 to determine"; if this principle of interpretation be true, how can such 

 a demand be made until it is shown that, under the 1st Article of the 

 Convention of 1818, the privilege of using the light-houses and fog- 

 whistles, that is, the privilege of seeing a light or hearing a sound, was 

 not enjoyed? Illiberal, unjust, and narrow as was the policy of that 

 Convention, it has not yet been charged with so grievous an offense 

 against humanity. It might stop our fishing, but it did not assume to 

 stop our sight and hearing at the three-mile limit. 



And in leaving this question of " consequences," I may say, in justifi- 

 cation of the length with which I have dwelt on it, that this " conse- 

 quential n I might almost say " inconsequential T reasoning pervades 

 the whole British Case, and infects the whole cross examination of 

 counsel on the other side. The effort has been studiously made to 

 create an atmosphere in with the uncertain and doubtful advantages of 

 the treaty would loom out so largely as to deceive the inexperienced 

 eye as to the exorbitant value that was sought to be attached to them. 

 I have but one other consideration to suggest before I come to the 

 history of this question, and it is this: If you will examine the treaties, 

 you will find that everywhere it is the " United States fishermen," the 

 " inhabitants of the United States," the citizens of the United States 

 who are prohibited from taking part in the fishery within the three- 

 mile limit. Now, I say remember, I am not talking about local legis- 

 lation on the other side at all, I am talking about treaties I say, there 

 s nothing in any treaty which would forbid a Nova Scotian or a 

 Prince Kdward Island citizen from going to Gloucester, hiring an 

 American vessel with an American register and coming within the three- 

 mile limit and fishing nothing at all. If such a vessel be manned by 

 a crow half citizens of the United States and half Nova Scotians, who 

 are fishing on shares, recollect, and who take the profits of their own 

 catches, where is the difference ? The United States citizen may vio- 

 late the law, but are the citizens of Nova Scotia doing so! They are 

 an? ncit the " inhabitants'* or " fishermen of the United States" excluded 

 from fishing within tbe three-mile limit. Take the analogy suggested 

 the British Case. Suppose, for instance, there was a law forbidding 

 hooting in the Dominion altogether by any one not a citizen, might 

 a i-iti/eii of the United States lend a'guu^to a citizen of the Domin- 

 ho wanted to shoot game and pay him for the game that he shot! 

 tins, that when Nova Scotia fishermen fish in an American 

 iin the three-mile limit, always supposing that they engage 

 on shares, they are simply using an instrument lawfully 

 tbe treaty, that the American part of the crew are using unlaw- 

 tliat is all. I do not press this legal view, because it is one which, 

 these days, will have to be taken up and decided ; I simply say 

 bat is common-sense opinion, that if, out of 5,000 fishermen, 2,500 

 iHh subjects, and fishing in American vessels, taking their own 

 <-8, making their own profits, in that case you cannot in equity 



