1734 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



tion from rtsli by taxing the cans useless for any other purpose in 

 which the tish are sent to market. 



While restoring to the legislation of Nova Scotia its true character, 

 this article shows also which of the two decisions rendered, one by Mr. 

 Justice Hazen, the other by the distinguished and learned chief justice 

 Sir William Young, must be held to be the correct one on preparing to 

 1\fth. The latter^ judgment receives from this impartial source an au- 

 thority which it did not require to carry conviction to all unprejudiced 

 minds. 



The necessity for the Nova Scotia statute of 1836, so much complained 

 of, became apparent within a pretty short period. 



In 1838, as mentioned in the United States Brief, p. 9, several Ameri- 

 can vessels were seized by British cruisers for fishing in large bays. 

 Between the dates of the Nova Scotia statute and these seizures the 

 American Secretary of State had issued circulars enjoining American 

 fishermen to observe the limits of the treaty, but without saying what 

 these limits were. Why did he abstain from giving his countrymen the 

 text of the Convention of 1818, Article 1st? They could have read in 

 it that the United States had renounced forever the liberty of taking, 

 drying, or curing fish within three marine miles of any coast, bay, creek, 

 or harbor, and that they could not be admitted to enter such bays or har- 

 bors, except for shelter, or repairing damages, or obtaining wood and 

 water, and for no other purpose whatever. Every fisherman would have 

 understood such clear language. Statesmen only could imagine that 

 "bays' 7 meant large bays, more than 6 miles wide at their entrance. 



It was the privilege of eminent politicians, but not of the fishermen, 

 to handle that extraordinary logic which involves the contention: 1st. 

 That for the purpose of fishing, the territorial waters of every country 

 along the sea-coast extend 3 miles from low-water mark. 2d. That '* in 

 the case of bays and gulfs, such only are territorial waters as do not 

 exceed 6 miles in width at the mouth upon a straight line measured 

 from headland to headland. 3d. That " all larger bodies of water con- 

 nected with the open sea form a part of it." These words are taken from 

 the Answer to British Case, pp. 2, 3). The fraraers of the Convention 

 of 1818 must have meant those large bays, when they excluded Ameri- 

 can fishermen from entering into any bay, &c. The most that the fisher- 

 man could have said, after reading the text, would be that it must have 

 been an oversight, and he would never have thought of taking the law 

 in his own hand and disregarding a solemn contract entered into by his 

 government. But, with his common sense, he would have said: The 

 convention could not mean the small bays, since I am told by American 

 lawyers that it did not require a treaty to protect the small bays against 

 our interference. (See the Answer to the Case, at page 2.) The word 

 bay could not mean anything but those large bays, which, in the absence 

 of treaty stipulations, might by some be considered as forming part of 

 the often sea. And, acting on this plain interpretation of the most clear 

 isherman would have abstained from entering into any bay 



oept for the purposes mentioned in the convention. Old fishermen 

 would, in addition, have taught the younger ones that there was a para- 

 t reason why the American Iramers of the Convention of 1818 

 could have no desire to open the large bays to their fishermen, for the 

 reason that up to 1827 or 1S28, that is until ten years after the conven- 

 tion, mackerel had not been found in large quantities in the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence. 



If, then, the circulars of the Secretary of the Treasury to American 

 ishermen failed to put the latter on their guard, when the Nova Scotia 



