514 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



the Government of the United States, it is further agreed that 

 commissioners shall be appointed to determine, having regard to 

 the privileges accorded by the United States to the subjects of 

 Her Britannic Majesty, as stated in Articles 19 and 21 of this 

 treaty, the amount of any compensation which, in their opinion, 

 ought to be paid by the Government of the United States to the 

 Government of Her Britannic Majesty in return for the privi- 

 leges accorded to the citizens of the United States under Article 

 18 of this treaty ; and that any sum of money which the said 

 commissioners may so award shall be paid by the United States 

 Government, in a gross sum, within twelve months after such 

 award shall have been given. 



Article 23 provided that the three commissioners proposed 

 in the previous clause should be appointed, one by the Presi- 

 dent of the United States, one by the queen of England, 

 and the third conjointly by the two ; though in case they 

 failed to agree upon some one within three months, the 

 choice of the third commissioner should then fall to the 

 Austrian Ambassador in London. 



It will therefore be observed that by this treaty the Cana- 

 dians secured one of their most cherished desiderata, the 

 abolition of all United States customs duties upon the 

 products of their fisheries. The American fishermen in 

 return gained perfect freedom in Canadian inshore waters, 

 though at what seemed to them to be a ruinous cost, i.e. 

 free Canadian fish ; they had already realized their inability 

 to compete successfully upon even terms with Canadian 

 fishermen. 



Believing that their government had given too great a 

 price for a free Canadian fishery, the New England fisher- 

 men thought it simply preposterous that the United States 

 Government should be willing to pay in addition, a money 

 consideration. 



The agreement to leave to an Austrian (under certain 

 conditions) the choice of a member of this proposed board 

 was unfortunate. It might reasonably have been feared 

 that a selection from Vienna would have been prejudiced, as 

 the ambitions of the house of Hapsburg had but recently 

 been frustrated by the United States in the threat to expel 



