PERIOD FROM 1888 TO 1909. 221 



United States. We cannot for a moment admit the existence of any 

 such Hmitation upon our Treaty rif2;hts. The liberty assured to us by 

 the Treaty plainly includes the right to use all the means customary 

 or appropriate for fishing upon the sea, not only ships and nets and 

 boats, but crews to handle the ships and the nets and the boats. No 

 right to control or limit the means which Americans shall use in fish- 

 ing can be admitted unless it is provided in the terms of the Treaty, 

 and no right to question the nationality of the crews employed is con- 

 tained in the terms of the Treaty. In 1818, and ever since, it has 

 been customary for the owners and masters of fishing-vessels to 

 employ crews of various nationalities. During all that period I am 

 not able to discover that any suggestion has ever been made of a right 

 to scrutinize the nationality of the crews employed in the vessels 

 through which the Treaty right has been exercised. 



The language of the Treaty of 1818 was taken from the Ilird 

 Article of the Treaty of 1783. The Treaty made at the same time 

 between Great Britain and France, the previous Treaty of the 10th 

 February, 1763, between Great Britain and France, and the Treaty of 

 Utrecht of the 11th April, 1713, in like manner contained a general 

 grant to "the subjects of France" to take fish on the Treaty coast. 

 During all that period no suggestion, so far as I can learn, was ever 

 made that Great Britain had a right to inquire into the nationality 

 of the members of the crew emploj^ed upon a French vessel. 



Nearly two hundred years have passed during which the subjects 

 of the French King and the inhabitants of the United States have 

 exercised fishing rights under these grants made to them in these 

 general terms, and during all that time there has been an almost con- 

 tinuous discussion in which Great Britain and her Colonies have 

 endeavoured to restrict the right to the narrowest possible limits, 

 without a suggestion that the crews of vessels enjoj'ing the right, or 

 whose owners were enjoying the right, might not be employed in the 

 customary way without regard to nationality. I cannot suppose 

 that it is now intended to raise such a question. 



I observe \vith satisfaction that the Memorandum assents to that 

 part of my second proposition to the effect that '' an American vessel 

 seeking to exercise the Treaty right is not bound to obtain a licence 

 from the Government of Newfoundland," and that His Majesty's 

 Government agree that "no law of Newfoundland should be enforced 

 on American fishermen which is inconsistent w^ith their rights under 

 the Convention." 



The views of His Majesty's Government, however, as to what laws 

 of the Colony of Newfoundland would be inconsistent with the Con- 

 vention if apphed to American fishermen, differ radically from the 

 view entertained by the Government of the United States. Accord- 

 ing to the Memorandum, the inhabitants of the United States going 

 in their vessels upon the Treaty coast to exercise the Treaty right of 

 fishing are bound to enter and clear in the Newfoundland custom- 

 houses, to pay hght dues, even the dues from w^iich coasting and 

 fishing- vessels owned and registered in the Colony are exempt, to 

 refrain altogether from fishing except at the time and in the manner 

 prescribed by the Regulations of Newfoundland. The Colonial pro- 

 hibition of fishing on Sundays is mentioned by the Memorandum as 

 one of the Regulations binding upon the American fishermen. We 

 are told that His Majesty's Government "hold that the only ground 



