198 CASE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the approval of Government, the harbor dues which are to be paid by 

 all vessels entering such ports and enjoying the advantages therein 

 provided. 



Others are natural harbors in great part unimproved, whose limits 

 are generally defined by order in council and for which a harbor-mas- 

 ter is appointed by Government, to whom all vessels entering pay cer- 

 tain nominal harbor-master's fees, which are regulated by a general 

 act of parliament, and which constitute a fund out of which the 

 harbor-master is paid a small salary for his services in maintaining 

 order within the harbor. The port of St. John, New Brunswick, is 

 entirely under municipal control and has its own stated and uniform 

 scale of charges. 



Harbor dues are paid whenever a vessel enters a port which is 

 under a commission, and harbor-master's fees are paid only twice per 

 calendar year by vessels entering ports not under a commission.'' 



It is understood that on the Canadian coasts no light-house dues 

 are exacted. 



It does not appear what communications passed between the 

 British and the Canadian Governments as a result of the protest by 

 the United States on the subject of requiring American vessels to 

 report at custom houses and pay harbor dues when, on account of 

 the denial of commercial privileges, their only purpose in entering the 

 Canadian harbors was to exercise their treaty right of resorting to 

 those harbors for shelter, repairs, wood or water. 



It does appear, however, from a report adopted by the Canadian 

 Privy Council on Alarch 28, 1887, that before the opening of the 1887 

 fishing season, the Canadian position was considerably modified with 

 respect to the requirement of reporting at custom houses. Referring 

 to the report above mentioned. Lord LansdowTie, then Governor 

 General of Canada, wrote on April 2, 1887, to Sir Henry Holland, 

 the Secretary of State for the Colonies, as follows: 



I have much pleasure in calhng your attention to the penultimate 

 paragraph of that report, from wliich you will observe that it will, 

 in the opinion of my Government, be possible, in cases Hke that of the 

 Jennie Seaverns, where a foreign fishing vessel has entered a Cana- 

 dian harbor for a lawful purpose and in the pursuance of her treaty 

 rights, to exercise, the necessary supervision over the conduct of her 

 master and crew, and to guard against infractions of the customs law 

 and other statutes binding upon foreign vessels while in Canadian 

 waters, without placing an armed guard on board or preventing rea- 

 sonable communication with the shore. 



aAppendix, p. 928. 



