656 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 



legislation. The evidence before the Halifax Commission makes it 

 obvious that to exclude our fishermen from catching bait, and thus 

 compel them to go without bait, or buy bait at the will and price of 

 the provincial fishermen, is the interest of the local fishermen, and 

 will be the guide and motive of such domestic legislation as is now 

 brought to the notice of this Government. 



You will therefore say to Lord Salisbury that this Government 

 can not but express its entire dissent from the view of the subject 

 that his lordship's note seems to indicate. This Government con- 

 ceives that the fishery 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 Newfoundland, now set 

 up as authority over our fishermen, and from any other regulations 

 of fishing now in force or that may hereafter be enacted by that 

 government. 



It may be said that a just participation in this common fishery by 

 the two parties entitled thereto may, in the common interest of pre- 

 serving the fishery and preventing conflicts between the fishermen, 

 require regulation by some competent authority. This may be con- 

 ceded. But should such occasion present itself to the common appre- 

 ciation of the two Governments, it need not be said that such com- 

 petent authority can only be found in a joint convention that shall 

 receive the approval of Her Majesty's Government and our own. 

 Until this arrangement shall be consummated, this Government must 

 regard the pretension that the legislation of Newfoundland can reg- 

 ulate our fishermen's enjoyment of the treaty right as striking at the 

 treaty itself. 



It asserts an authority on one side, and a submission on the other, 

 which has not been proposed to us by Her Majesty's Government, and 

 has not been accepted by this Government. I can not doubt that Lord 

 Salisbury will agree that the insertion of any such element in the 

 Treaty of Washington would never have been accepted by this Gov- 

 ernment, if it could reasonably be thought possible that it could have 

 been proposed by Her Majesty's Government. The insertion of any 

 such proposition by construction now is equally at variance with the 

 views of this Government. 



The representations made to this Government by the interests of 

 our citizens affected leave no room to doubt that this assertion of 

 authority is as serious and extensive in practical relations as it is in 

 principle. The rude application made to the twenty vessels in For- 

 tune Bay of this asserted authority, in January last, drove them from 

 the profitable prosecution of their projected cruises. By the same 

 reason, the entire inshore fishery is held by us upon the same tenure 

 of dependence upon the parliament of the Dominion or the legisla- 

 tures of the several Provinces. 



I cannot but regret that this vital question has presented itself so 

 unexpectedly to this Government, and at a date so near the period at 

 which this Government, upon a comparison of views with Her 

 Majesty's Government, is to pass upon the conformity of the pro- 

 ceedings of the Halifax Commission with the requirements of the 

 Treaty of Washington. The present question is wholly aside from 



