AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 18f>7 



He further says : 



If onr mackerel men are prohibited from going within throe miles of the *hor, and r* 

 forcibly kept away (and nothing but force, will do it), then they may a* woll give up ihc.r 

 business first as last. It will be always uncertain. 



This is a significant observation. We find through all tin-so speeches 

 allusions made to the trouble which the course that had been adopted 

 under the provisions of the Treaty of 1818 toward the body of Ameri- 

 can fishermen coming on our shores to fish would continue to bring 

 upon the two countries, and that war was imminent. Why was this? 

 Surely, if the fishery on their coast is so valuable, they can* stay there, 

 and if the fisheries on our coast are so valueless, they can stay away ! 

 We have not asked them to come into our waters. And it does appear 

 to me that it comes with extremely bad grace from these people to 

 make complaints that harsh measures are used to keep them out ot" 

 them. What right have they at all ? They have renounced all right. 

 They have solemnly, as far back as 1818, renounced a?iy right to enter 

 these waters, and that convention is in full force still, save as tempora- 

 rily affected by the Washington Treaty. We have no right except tem- 

 porarily, under the same treaty, to enter their waters, lint, according 

 to the argument of Mr. Dana, we have the right to enter them, because 

 he says that there are no territorial waters belonging to any country. In 

 that sense you cannot be prevented from fishing in any waters, if I 

 understand his proposition correctly; and we therefore have the right 

 to go there and fish. But what do the United States say ? They hold 

 to no such construction of the law of nations. So far from that being 

 the case, their own shore-fisheries cannot be touched by foreign lish- 

 ermen, and even under the treaty, by virtue of which your excellency 

 and your honors are now sitting, our fishermen have only the right 

 to fish on their shores from the 30th parallel of north latitude north- 

 ward ; not one step, uot one mile to the southward of that parallel can 

 they go. The strongest possible proclamation of sovereignty which one 

 country can possibly hold out to another is here held out by the 

 United States with regard to their territorial waters to England and 

 to the world j and yet, for the purpose of getting into our waters, we 

 are told that, under the law of nations, American fishermen can come 

 in and demand complete freedom of access to them ; but when it 

 comes to their own waters that doctrine will not do at all. This is the 

 reductio ad absiirdum, with a vengeance ! Who ever heard anything 

 like it? Here is a solemn agreement which has been entered into be- 

 tween two countries, and yet , we have complaints complaint 

 complaint regarding the means which our men have exercised in ord 

 to keep these people from fishing in our waters, from which they 

 inhibited by a solemn treaty. Why, it does not seem to me l> IH> fair- 

 not to use any stronger term than ^that, and using the mildest possil 

 term to characterize it to adopt this tone. All thisseems to le i 

 unfair; and here Mr. Tuck states that nothing but force will 

 American fishermen out of our waters. But there is a strong rea*o 

 the employment of this language. What is it ? Why, our fisher 

 all valuable, while theirs are practically useless ; " and the 

 says Mr. Tuck, "our fishermen absolutely must have acces 

 sands of miles of shore fisheries." 



He states : 



They (the American fishermen) want the shore fisheries; they want the r 

 maintain structures on shore to cure codfish as soon as taken, thus sHv.ng " 

 better fish for market; and believing their wishes to be easy of accompli* 

 not consent to the endurance of former restrictions, the annoyances and 

 have so long felt. 



