PERIOD FROM 1888 TO 1909. 225 



to observe in common with the British the then existing local laws and 

 regulations, which is implied by the words 'in common,' attached to 

 the United States' citizens as soon as they claimed the benefit of the 

 Treaty." 



Under the view thus forcibly expressed, the British Government 

 would be consistent in clauning that all regulations and limitations 

 upon the exercise of the right of fishing upon the Newfoundland coast, 

 wnich were in existence at the tune when the Treaty of 1818 was 

 made, are now binding upon American fishermen. 



Farther than this, His Majesty's Government cannot consistently 

 go, and, farther than this, the Government of the United States can- 

 not go. 



For the claim now asserted that the Colony of Newfoundland is 

 entitled at will to regulate the exercise of the American Treatj^ right 

 is equivalent to a claim of power to completely destroy that right. 

 This Government is far from desiring that the Newfoundland fish- 

 eries shall go unregulated. It is willing and ready now, as it has 

 always been, to join with the Government of Great Britain in agreeing 

 upon all reasonable and suitable regulations for the due control of the 

 fishermen of both countries in the exercise of their rights, but tliis 

 Government cannot permit the exercise of these rights to be subject 

 to the will of the Colony of Newfoundland. The Government of the 

 United States cannot recognize the authority of Great Britain or of 

 its Colony to determine whether American citizens shall fish on 

 Sunday. The Government of Newfoundland cannot be permitted 

 to make entry and clearance at a Newfoundland custom-house and 

 the payment of a tax for the support of Newfoundland lighthouses 

 conditions to the exercise of the American right of fishing. If it be 

 shown that these things are reasonable the Government of the United 

 States will agree to them, but it camiot submit to have them imposed 

 upon it without its consent. This position is not a matter of theory. 

 It is of vital and present importance, for the plain object of recent 

 legislation of the Colony of Newfoundland has been practically to 

 d.estroy the value of American rights under the Treaty of 1818. Those 

 rights are exercised in competition with the fishermen and merchants 

 of Newfoundland. The situation of the Newfoundland fishermen 

 residing upon the shore and making the shore their base of operations, 

 and of the American fishermen coming long distances with expensive 

 outfits, devoting lon^ periods to the vo3'age to the fishing grounds 

 and back to the market, obliged to fish rapidly in order to make up 

 for that loss of tune, and making sliips their base of operations, are so 

 different that it is easy to frame regulations wliich will offer slight 

 inconvenience to the dwellers on shore and be practically prohibitory 

 to the fishermen from the coasts of Maine and Massachusetts; and, 

 if the grant of this competitive right is to be subject to such laws as 

 our competitors choose to make, it is a worthless right. The Premier 

 of Newfoundland in his speech in the Newfoundland Parliament, 

 delivered on the 12th April, 1905, in support of the Foreign Fishing 

 Bill, made the following declaration: — 



"This Bill is framed specially to prevent the American fishermen 

 from coming into the bays, harbours, and creeks of the coast of 



