194 CASE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



In connection with the question of commercial privileges on the 

 treaty coasts, presented by the above cases, attention is also 

 called to a statement made by the Canadian Minister of Marine and 

 Fisheries in his report approved by the Canadian Privy Council on 

 June 14, 1886. In this report he discusses the question of commer- 

 cial privileges on the coasts covered by the renunciatory clause and 

 he draws a distinction between the exercise of such privileges on 

 those coasts and on the treaty coasts as follows: 



Mr. Bayard states that in the proceedings prior to the treaty of 1818 

 the British commissioners proposed that United States fishing ves- 

 sels should be excluded "from carrying also merchandise," but that 

 this proposition "being resisted by the American negotiators, was 

 abandoned," and goes on to say, "this fact would seem clearly to indi- 

 cate that the business of fishing did not then, and does not now, dis- 

 qualify vessels from also trading in the regular ports of entry. A 

 reference to the proceedings alluded to will show that the proposition 

 mentioned related only to United States vessels visiting those portions 

 of the coast of Labrador and Ne^\^oundland on which the United 

 States fishermen had been granted the right to fish, and to land for 

 drying and curing fish, and the rejection of the proposal can, at the 

 utmost, be supposed only to indicate that the liberty to carry mer- 

 chandise might exist without objection in relation to those coasts, and 

 is no ground for supposing that the right extends to the regular ports 

 of entry, against the express words of the treaty .'^ 



It must also be noted that the renunciatory clause, which was the 

 basis for denying commercial privileges to American fishermen on the 

 coasts covered by it, does not apply to the treaty coasts, and, therefore, 

 on those coasts the American fishermen are not limited by the treaty 

 to the use of the bays and harbors for the four purposes of shelter, 

 repairs, wood, and water, and the " no other purposes whatever" 

 provision has no application to them there. 



Customs Entry and Harbor Dues on Coasts Covered by Renunciatory 



Clause. 



Several seizures or threatened seizures of American vessels occurred 

 in 1886 and 1887 resulting in some diplomatic correspondence of 

 interest in connection with Question 4, submitted for decision in 

 this Case, which asks whether under the provisions of the renun- 

 ciatory clause of the treaty it is permissible to impose restrictions 

 making the exercise of the four privileges referred to in that clause 

 conditional upon the payment of light, or harbor, or other dues, 

 or entry, or reporting at custom-houses, or any similar conditions. 



o Appendix, p. 818. 



