1884 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



much as the mackerel is the only fish the market for the best qualities 

 of which is limited to the United States, it is not deemed necessary to 

 continue the inquiry with reference to other fish products to which the 

 markets of the world are open, and whose prices therefore can in no 

 way be influenced by the United States. 



Now, if your honors please, there is but one other subject to which I 

 will call the attention of this Commission, before I close, and that is to 

 the offer made by the American Commissioners at the time this Treaty 

 of Washington was being negotiated. I refer to the offer to remit the 

 duty on coal, lumber, and salt. The circumstances are statud at length 

 in the Reply of Great Britain to the Answer of the United States, and 

 therefore I need not refer particularly to the figures. The sum was 

 $17,800,000, as far as I can recollect. Now, if it is true, as contended 

 by the United States in their Answer, that the remission of duties means 

 a booji to the persons in whose favor they are remitted, and that those 

 persons are the producers, then it, is clear that this is a fair estimate, put 

 by the American High Commissioners themselves, upon the fishing privi- 

 leges that they icere then endeavoring to obtain from the British Government. 

 Whether that is a correct principle or not, is not what I am here to con- 

 tend. My argument is that that was the view of the United States as 

 a country, believing in the proposition that the producer, and not the 

 consumer, pays the duty. 



In their own Answer they put the remission of duties which they say 

 inures to our benefit at $400,000 a year. While we do not admit the 

 correctness of their view of that remission, either in principle or amount, 

 their answer is an admission of their estimate of the value of the con- 

 cessions afforded to them. If the concessions were worth as much as 

 that, then the award of this Commission must of necessity be in favor 

 of Great Britain for a large amount. But it may be said "You have got 

 the value of this because we have remitted these duties." We have 

 shown by evidence and argument, conclusively, that the producer does 

 not pay one dollar of these duties, that fish from the Halifax market was 

 sent there during the period when the duties were paid, and that the 

 fish merchant here received back, in his own counting-house, for the fish 

 sold in Boston, as much money as when there was no duty paid at all. 

 The remission of duty, therefore, is a benefit to citizens of the United 

 States, and not to us. 



1 have, in order to close this argument to-day, passed over a number 

 of subjects which I at one time intended to call to the attention of the 

 Commission. But the time is pressing. We are to a considerable ex- 

 tent worn out with the labors of the Commission. Yesterday I asked 

 the Commission to open at an earlier hour to-day, in order that I might 

 finish my remarks without further adjournment', and I am happy to be 

 able to redeem my promise. 



I have now brought my argument on behalf of Great Britain to a 

 close. To the shortcomings and defects of that argument I am pain- 

 fully alive. But the cause I have advocated is so righteous in itself, 

 has been supported and sustained by evidence so trustworthy and con- 

 clusive, and is to be decided by a tribunal so able and impartial as that 

 which I have the honor to address, that I entertain no fears of the 

 result. 



Although I rejoice that a responsibility which for many months has 

 pressed with no ordinary weight upon my learned colleagues and my- 

 self, is well nigh ended, yet I cannot but feel a pang of regret that the 

 days of my pleasant intercourse with the gentlemen engaged in and 

 connected with this most important inquiry are drawing to a close. 



