1690 AWAKD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



that market, and the conduct of such men, who cannot be governed by 

 any peculiar and special motive bearing upon the case, we have pro- 

 duced a fair and influential consideration, we claim that that is entitled 

 to its fair weigbt. You might well say, perhaps, of one fisherman of 

 Gloucester, or of two, that so deep was their hostility to the British 

 provinces that they would be willing to abstain from using these fish- 

 eries, just for the purpose of reducing the amount that this tribunal 

 might And itself called upon to adjudge. But if there should be one 

 such man so endowed with disinterested malice, I am quite certain that 

 this tribunal will not believe so of the entire fishing community of 

 buyers and sellers, fishermen and merchants, acting for a series of years, 

 in view of their own interests. If, therefore, we have shown, as we cer- 

 tainly have, that the use of this bay fishery, as an entirety, the whole of 

 it, deep sea and inshore alike, has steadily diminished in market value, 

 that our ship-owners are withdrawing their vessels from it, that fewer 

 and fewer are sent here every year, and that they have said, man after 

 man, that they do not value the extension of the territorial privilege, 

 where that extension is always inshore, bringing them into more dan- 

 gerous and less profitable regions; that being the case, we ask your 

 honors to consider all this as fair proof of the slight value which is 

 actually put, by business men, acting in their own interests, upon what 

 has been conceded to us. 



Now, what is tbis that has been conceded to us, or, rather, what is this 

 claim of exclusion from which Great Britain has agreed to withdraw 

 herself during the period of this treaty ? What is the privilege ? It is 

 the privilege of trying to catch fish within that limit. That is all it is. 

 All attempt to measure it by the value of the fish in barrels brought into 

 the United States is perfectly futile and fallacious. A barrel of fish salted 

 and coopered and standing on the wharf in Gloucester represents some- 

 thing very different from the value of a right to cross over a portion of the 

 seas and attempt to catch the fish. It represents capital ; it represents 

 the interest on a vessel costing $8,000; it represents the interest upon 

 the whole outlay of a permanent character, and it represents the abso- 

 lute cost of all the outlay which is of a perishable character ; it repre- 

 sents the wages of skilled labor ; it represents mercantile capacity ; and 

 if you eliminate from the value of the mackerel standing upon the wharf 

 at Gloucester all these elements, and turn me back to the mere fact that 

 there was some mackerel, more or less, thin, meager, fat, or heavy, as 

 we please, to be found by the diligent and skillful mariner within that 

 little fringe of this great garment, what do you show me at all by which 

 I can estimate its value! And that is the whole of it. Furthermore, 

 if you take, instead of that, the value of the mackerel as it stands upon 

 the wharf at Prince Edward Island, soon after it is caught, $3.75, that 

 represents, again, the interest on the cost of the ship, and all the outfit 

 and all the labor, and all the skill, and all the risk. Eliminate them, 

 and what have you left ? You have nothing left but the right or liberty 

 :o do something within certain limits ; and that right is one, any attempt 

 to exclude us trom which is very dangerous, uncertain, and precarious. 

 o not know what to liken it to. It certainly is not to be compared 



| to a lease, because the lessor furnishes everything that the lease 

 requires. Now, if, in company with this privilege, Great Britain had 

 furnished the fish, so that we should not have to employ vessels, or men, 



ill,or labor, or industry, furnished them to us on the wharf at Prince 



aland, then there might be some analogy between that and a 



lease. What is it like f Is it like the value of a privilege to practice law ? 



t M'"te, because there always will be lawsuits, but it is not sure that 



