528 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



entirely independent of the rights or privileges which the 

 Canadians have to offer. 



By freezing their fares they are enabled to bring them 

 home and to cure their fish upon American soil, thus doing 

 away with one of the most aggravating causes of dispute in 

 former years. Those American fishermen who resort more 

 particularly to the Banks adjacent to Newfoundland admit 

 the convenience of a license for using Canadian ports, espe- 

 cially in the contingency of prolonged unfavorable weather ; 

 but whatever may be the value of such privileges even if 

 made general and open to all the fishermen are unanimous 

 in the belief that they are not worth the price of free Ameri- 

 can markets to Canadian fish and fish products. Rather 

 than suffer the great injury to their business, which they say 

 free competition with the Canadians would cause, they 

 would cheerfully forego the benefits given them by the 

 Modus Vivendi. 



As heretofore shown, the chief difficulties arising out of 

 the fisheries hi the last few years have been produced by 

 the use of the purse seine. This method of fishing for 

 mackerel was extensively followed by American skippers in 

 the shallow waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but the 

 employment of these large nets was denounced by the Cana- 

 dians upon the supposition that it tended to scatter the 

 schools of fish, to interfere with their habits of breeding, and 

 to cause them ultimately to abandon those waters. They 

 alleged, therefore, that the use of this seine constituted an 

 act contra bonos mores. Whether the Canadians were justi- 

 fied in those apprehensions or not, the Americans neverthe- 

 less continued the practice, basing their right to do so 

 (beyond three miles from shore) upon the broad rights of 

 mare liberum. 



These points of difference offered an excellent foundation 

 for future diplomatic disturbances, but two causes happily 

 appeared which no doubt prevented the maturing of these 

 seasonal quarrels into a more serious international disagree- 

 ment. The American fishermen began of their own volition 

 to abandon the use of the purse seine, and to return to the 



