PERIOD FROM 1871 TO 1888. 177 



While the differing interests and methods of the shore fishery and 

 the vessel fishery make it impossible that the regulations of the one 

 should be entirely given to the other, yet if the mutual obligations of 

 the treaty of 1871 are to be maintained, the United States Govern- 

 ment would gladly co-operate with the Government of Her Britannic 

 Majesty in any effort to make those regulations a matter of reciprocal 

 convenience and right; a means of preserving the fisheries at their 

 highest point of production, and of conciliating a community of inter- 

 ests by a just proportion of advantages and profits." 



In Lord Granville's reply to Mr. Evarts, dated October 27, 1880, 

 from which an extract is quoted above, he stated the position of his 

 Government in regard to Mr. Evarts' suggestion as follows: 



Her Majesty's Government entirely concur in Mr. Marcy's circular 

 of the 28th of March, 1856. The principle therein laid down ap- 

 pears to them perfectly sound, and as applicable to the fishery pro- 

 visions of the treaty of Washington as those of the treaty which 

 Mr. Marcy had in view. They cannot, therefore, admit the accuracy 

 of the opinion expressed in Mr. Evarts's letter to Mr. Welsh, of the 

 28th of September, 1878, ''that the fisheiy rights of the United States 

 conceded by the treaty of Washington are to be exercised wholly 

 free from the restraints and regulations of the statutes of Newfound- 

 land," if by that opinion anything inconsistent with Mr. Marcy's 

 principle is really intended. Her Majesty's Government, however, 

 mlly adinit that if any such local statutes could be shown to be in- 

 consistant with the express stipulations, or even with the spirit of 

 the treaty, they would not be within the category of those reasonable 

 regulations by which American (in common with British) fishermen 

 ought to be bound, and they observe, on the other hand, -vsath much 

 satisfaction, that Mr. Evarts, at the close of his letter to Mr. Welsh, 

 of the 1st of August, 1879, after expressing regret at ''the conflict of 

 interests which the exercise of the treaty privileges enjoyed by the 

 United States appears to have developed,'^ expressed himself as 

 follows : 



"There is no intention on the part of this [the United States] 

 government that these privileges should be abused, and no desire that 

 their full and free enjoyment should harm the colonial fishermen. 



"While the differing interests and methods of the shore fishery and 

 the vessel fisheiy make it impossible that the regulation of the one 

 should be entirely given to the other, yet if the mutual obligations of 

 the treaty of 1871 are to be maintained, the United States Govern- 

 ment would gladly co-operate with the Government of Her Britannic 

 Majesty in any effort to make those regulations a matter of reciprocal 

 convenience and right, a means of preserving the fisheries at their 

 highest point of production, and of concDiating a community of 

 interest by a just proportion of advantages and profits." 



Her Majesty's Government do not interpret these expressions in 

 any sense derogatory to the sovereign authority of Great Britain in 

 the territorial waters of Newfoundland, by which only regulations 

 having the force of law within those waters can be made. So regard- 

 ing the proposal, they are pleased not only to recognize in it an indi- 



a Supra, p. 171. 



