20 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



In many respects this was the most important question submitted 

 for decision. The bait fish, which are procured in immense quanti- 

 ties in the bays of Newfoundland and of the Magdalen Islands, are a 

 very important factor in the successful prosecution of the exceedingly 

 valuable cod fishery on the Grand Bank and on the other banks in the 

 North Atlantic; and this situation discloses the real importance of 

 this question. If the contention of the Newfoundland Government 

 had been sustained, and American fishermen deprived of the oppor- 

 tunity of taking bait for themselves in these bays, it was the admitted 

 intention of the Newfoundland Government to threaten the entire 

 cod-fishing industry on the banks by prohibiting the Newfoundland 

 fishermen from selling bait to the American fishermen, in order to 

 compel the United States to yield to Newfoundland's demand for the 

 free entry of Newfoundland fish and fish products and for other com- 

 mercial concessions in exchange for the privilege of procuring bait. 

 Furthermore, the very important and profitable winter herring fish- 

 ing was also dependent upon the decision of this question, inasmuch 

 as it is carried on by the American fishermen wholly in the bays on 

 the west coast of Newfoundland. 



The decision of this question in favor of the United States also 

 disposes of a claim for a very large amount of damages which the 

 Newfoundland Government was preparing to present against the 

 United States for the value of all the fish taken by American vessels 

 in these bays during the 90 years since the treaty was entered into, on 

 the ground that American fishermen under the treaty had no right 

 to fish in such bays. 



The seventh question called upon the tribunal to determine whether 

 or not the inhabitants of the United States, whose vessels resorted 

 to the treaty coasts for the purpose of exercising their treaty liberties 

 of fishing, were entitled to use the same vessels, when duly author- 

 ized by the United States, in the exercise of such commercial privi- 

 leges on the treaty coasts as were accorded by agreement or other- 

 wise to American trading vessels generally. The position of the 

 United States on this question was that fishing vessels exercising 

 commercial privileges necessarily subjected themselves to all the 

 requirements and conditions imposed upon commercial vessels gen- 

 erally, but that the use of a vessel by inhabitants of the United States 

 in the exercise of their fishing rights did not disqualify such vessel 

 from being used for commercial purposes after it had completed its 

 fishing operations, and conversely, that a commercial vessel might 

 be used for fishing purposes as soon as its use for commercial pur- 

 poses ceased. 



The award of the tribunal fully sustains the contentions of the 

 United States on this question, holding that — 



The inhabitants of the United States are so entitled, in so far as 

 concerns this treaty, there being nothing in its provisions to disen- 



