672 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 



to expect at the hands of Her Britannic Majesty's Government proper 

 compensation for the loss they have sustained. The United States 

 Government, of course, desires to avoid an exaggerated estimate of 

 the loss which has been actually sustained, but thinks you will find 

 the elements for a fair calculation in the sworn statement of the own- 

 ers, copies of which are herewith sent. You will find in the printed 

 pamphlet which accompanies this, and which is the statement sub- 

 mitted to this department on behalf of twenty of the vessels, the ex- 

 pense of each vessel in preparation for the fishery and her estimated 

 loss and damage. The same statement with regard to the two vessels 

 New England and Ontario, not included in this list of twenty, you 

 will find attached hereto, thus making a complete statement for the 

 twenty-two vessels which were in Fortune Bay on the 6th January, 

 1878, and the government of the United States sees no reason to doubt 

 the accuracy of these estimates. I find upon examining the testimony 

 of one of the most intelligent of the Newfoundland witnesses called be- 

 fore the Halifax Commission by the British Government, Judge 

 Bennett, formerly Speaker of the Colonial House, and himself largely 

 interested in the business, that he estimates the Fortune Bay business 

 in frozen herring, in the former years of purchase, at 20,000 to 25,000 

 barrels for the season and that it was increasing, and this is con- 

 firmed by others. 



The evidence in this case shows that the catch which the United 

 States fishing fleet had on this occasion actually realized was excep- 

 tionally large, and would have supplied profitable cargoes for all of 

 them. When to this is added the fact that the whole winter was lost 

 and these vessels compelled to return home in ballast; that this vio- 

 lence had such an effect on this special fishery that in the winter of 

 1878-'79 it has been almost entirely abandoned, and the former fleet 

 of twenty-six vessels has been reduced to eight, none of whom went 

 provided with seines, but were compelled to purchase their fish of the 

 inhabitants of Newfoundland, the United States Government is of 

 opinion that $105,305.02 may be presented as an estimate of the loss as 

 claimed, and you will consider that amount as being what this Gov- 

 ernment will regard as adequate compensation for loss and damage. 



In conclusion I would not be doing justice to the wishes and opin- 

 ions of the United States Government if I did not express its pro- 

 found regret at the apparent conflict of interests which the exercise 

 of its treaty privileges appears to have developed. There is no inten- 

 tion on the part of this Government that these privileges should be 

 abused, and no desire that their full and free enjoyment should harm 

 the Colonial fishermen. While the differing interests and methods 

 of the shore fishery and the vessel fishery make it impossible that the 

 regulations of the one should be entirely given to the other, yet if the 

 mutual obligations of the treaty of 1871 are to be maintained, the 

 United States Government would gladly co-operate with the Gov- 

 ernment of Her Britannic Majesty in any effort to make those regu- 

 lations a matter of reciprocal convenience and right; a means of 

 preserving the fisheries at their highest point of production, and of 

 conciliating a community of interests by a just proportion of advan- 

 tages and profits. 



I am, etc., WM. M. EVAETS. 



