AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 1645 



planting from the results of lavish expenditure! No. You would go 

 to Savannah and Mobile, to Charleston and New York, to the offices of 

 the factors, to the counting-houses of the great buyers, to the receipts 

 of the railroads, to the freight-lists of the steamers. I may safely say 

 that there is no great industry, the costs and profits of which can be 

 ascertained by such partial individual inquiry. I am willing to admit 

 perfect honesty of intention on the part of the individuals ; but they 

 never can understand how small a portion of a great result is the product 

 of their local contribution ; and just as a small farmer in all sincerity 

 measures the crop of grain or cotton that feeds and clothes the world 

 from the experience of his few acres; so the boat-fishermen of Prince 

 Edward measures the mackerel-catch of the gulf by the contents of his 

 boat, and imagines the few sail he sees in the offing of his harbor to be 

 a huge fleet that is stealing his treasure. I mean no disrespect to very 

 excellent people, but as I have heard their testimony, I would not but 

 recall the humble address of the legislative council and house of assem- 

 bly of Nova Scotia " to the Queen's most Excellent Majesty," in March, 

 1838, in which the fishermen of Prince Edward and the Magdalen Islands 

 are tersely described as " a well-intentioned, but secluded and unin- 

 formed, portion of Your Majesty's subjects/' 



Let me call your attention to another important point of difference 

 between their testimony and ours. Theirs is the affirmative in this 

 contention. They must prove their allegation. What is their allega- 

 tion ! They allege that the catch of mackerel by American fishermen 

 within the three-mile limit is of more pecuniary value to us than the 

 right to fish in the same limits in United States waters, with the addi- 

 tional right to send in fish and fish-oil free, is to them. We say, prove 

 it. Now, there can be but two ways of furnishing such proof. Either 

 the British counsel must produce the evidence of a positive catch of 

 value sufficient to sustain the allegation, or they must prove such a habit 

 of successful fishing by Americans within the limits as justifies their in- 

 ference of a proportion of such value. 



They b-tve not attempted to do the first. Nowhere in their evidence 

 have they shown so many barrels of mackerel positively caught within 

 the three-mile limit, and said, "There is the number, and here is the 

 value for which we are entitled to be paid." If all the mackerel that 

 have been sworn to by every witness as caught within the limit not 

 what he has heard has been caught, or thinks has been caught, but 

 knows from his personal knowledge be added together, it would not 

 make $100,000. Their value would be utterly inappreciable compared 

 with the amount claimed. 



They have adopted the other course, and by it they must stand or fall. 

 They have put on the stand (leaving out Newfoundland) about fifty wit- 

 nesses, who swore that they in United States ships caught mackerel 

 within the limits, and they claim that this fact proves "the habit" of 

 fishing within the limits. In reply, we put on an equal number of wit- 

 nesses, who prove that they caught habitually good fares in the bay, 

 without fishing within the three-mile limit. " Granted," they say, " but 

 this only proves that your fifty witnesses did not fish within the three- 

 mile limit." That is true ; but is it not equally true that 'their testi- 

 mony only proves that their witnesses, and those alone, fished within 

 the limits, and leaves the question simply, whether they caught enough 

 to justify an award? To go a step further, you must prove " the habit " 

 of United States fishermen. But how can you prove a habit with equal 

 testimony for and against it ? It is exactly like what all lawyers and 

 business men know as proving " commercial usage." In the absence of 



