PERIOD FROM 1871 TO 1888. 171 



received compensation are forbidden by the terms of the very treaty 

 under which it made the claim and received the payment. Indeed, 

 the language of Lord Salisbury justifies the Government of the 

 United States in drawing the conclusion that between itself and Her 

 Britannic Majesty's Government there is no substantial difference in 

 the construction of the privileges of the treaty of 1871, and that in 

 the future the colonial regulation of the fisheries with which, as far 

 as their own interests are concerned, we have neither right nor desire 

 to intermeddle, will not be allowed to modify or affect the rights 

 which have been guaranteed to citizens of the United States. 



You will therefore say to Lord Salisbury that the Government of 

 the United States considers the engagements of the treaty of 1871 con- 

 travened by the local legislation of Newfoundland, by the prohibition 

 of the use of seines, by the closing of the fishery with seines between 

 October and April, by the forbidding of fishing for the purpose of ex- 

 portation between December and xipril, by the prohibition to fish on 

 Sunday, by the allowance of nets of only of a specified mesh, and by the 

 limitation of the area of fishing between Cape Ray and Cape Chapeau 

 Rouge. Of course, this is only upon the supposition that such laws 

 are considered as applying to United States fishermen; as local regu- 

 lations for native fishermen we have no concern with them. The con- 

 travention consists in excluding United States fishermen during the 

 very times in which they have been used to pursue this industry, and 

 forbidding the methods by which alone it can be profitably carried on. 

 The exclusion of the time from October to April covers the only sea- 

 son in which frozen herring can be procured, while the prohibition 

 of the seines would interfere with the vessels, who, occupied in cod- 

 fishing during the summer, go to Fortune Bay in the winter, and 

 would consequently have to make a complete chan<^e in their fishing 

 gear, or depend entirely upon purchase from the natives for their sup- 



§ly. The prohibition of work on Sunday is impossible under the con- 

 itions of the fishery. The vessels must be at Fortune Bay at a cer- 

 tain time, and leave for market at a certain time. The entrance of the 

 schools of herring is uncertain, and the time they stay equally so. 

 Whenever they come the}^ must be caught, and the evidence in this 

 very case shows that after Sunday, the 6th of January, there was no 

 other influx of these fish, and that prohibition on that day would 

 have been equivalent to shutting out the fishermen for the season.*^ 



The concluding paragraph of Mr. Evarts' letter is as follows: 



In conclusion I would not be doing justice to the wishes and opin- 

 ions of the United States Government if I did not express its pro- 

 found regret at the apparent conflict of interests which the exercise 

 of its treaty privileges appears to have developed. There is no inten- 

 tion on the part of this Government that these privileges should be 

 abused, and no desire that their full and free enjoyment should harm 

 the Colonial fishermen. AVliile the differing interests and methods 

 of the shore fishery and the vessel fishery make it impossible that the 

 regulations of the one should be entireh^ given to the other, yet if the 

 mutual obligations of the treat}' of 1871 are to be maintained, the 

 United States Government would gladly co-operate with the Gov- 

 ernment of Her Britannic Majesty in any effort to make those regu- 

 lations a matter of reciprocal convenience and right; a means of 



a Appendix, p. 667. 



