1788 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION, 



other, pays that other's debt. It is money paid to his use, as all law- 



yers know, and is a valid claim against the party for whom it was paid. 



Now, I will follow him a little farther, and will examine some other 



propositions that he laid down. He says this, on page 58 of his speech : 



It is precisely, as far as you are concerned, as if, instead of the exchange of fishing priv- 

 ileges, that treaty had proposed an exchange of territory. For instance, if that treaty had 

 proposed the exchange of Maine and Manitoba, and the United States had maintained that 

 the value of Maine was much larger than Manitoba, and referred it to you to equalize the 

 exchange. It is very manifest that to New England, for instance, it might not only be dis- 

 advantageous, but very dangerous ; but the only question for you to consider would be the 

 relative value of the two pieces of territory. 



Well, I will take his view of that matter, and let us see what follows. 

 He in effect says, just put one territory against another and take their 

 value how many acres are there in the State of Maine and how many 

 in the Province of Nova Scotia ? Now, we Lave evidence of what the 

 concession is under this treaty to the fishermen of the Dominion. They 

 get the right to fish as far north as tbey please over a line drawn from 

 the thirty-ninth parallel of north latitude upon the American coast, a 

 distance, I think, of somewhere about 1,050 miles. As against that, the 

 United States fishermen get upon the British-American coast the right 

 to fish over an extent of some 3,700 odd miles. There is a clear balance 

 entirely against them. Or, if you choose to take the area in square 

 miles, you have nearly 3,500 square miles of fishing territory given to 

 us by the United States, while 11,900 square miles of British territorial 

 waters are given to them. I am quite willing to meet them upon their 

 own ground, to oppose them with their own weapons. In that view 

 there is just the difference in our favor between 3,500 square miles and 

 11,900. 



Now, I will pass on to another branch of onr claim for compensation. 

 Great Britain says, and we have proved, that along the line of Canadian 

 coast upon which the American fishermen ply their calling by virtue of this 

 treaty, there have been very costly harbors made, and there have been 

 numerous large and expensive light-houses erected. Great Britain says 

 that by means of these harbors and light-houses the fishermen of the 

 United States have been enabled more successfully to prosecute their 

 calling in territorial waters. That would strike you, I think, as being 

 obviously the case. These improvements render the privilege conceded 

 by us much more valuable than it otherwise would have been. Suppose 

 the coast to have been entirely unlighted, and the harbors to have been 

 unsafe and difficult of access^it might then well have been said that the 

 privilege was merely a nominal one; that no fisherman could ply his 

 vocation in Canadian territorial waters without danger to life and prop- 

 erty. The evidence as to the cost of these works is before you, and I 

 do not intend to go into it. I am only alluding to it because I am fol- 

 lowing the course of Mr. Trescot's address. Does it not strike you as 

 reasonable that the effect of these expenditures upon the American 

 iHUiiig-hiiKiness should be taken into consideration ? Not only is there 

 creah-rsuiVty and more certainty of successful catches, but money is there- 

 dually put into the pockets of their merchants in the shape of pre- 



lums ot insurance saved. If it be true that they pay one per cent, a 

 month for a fishing-vessel in the bay and some of the witnesses say 

 that IH the rate what would they pay if there were no such light-houses 

 to guide their vessels to a place of safety no such harbors to shelter 

 them from storms ! When Mr. Trescot made his flourish on the subject 

 be asked if we had no trade that required these lighthouses. I am 



