PERIOD FROM 18*71 TO 1905. 765 



The effect of this colonial legislation and Executive interpretation, 

 if executed according to the letter, would be not only to expand the re- 

 strictions and renunciations of the treaty of 1818, which related solely 

 to inshore fishery within the three-mile limit, so as to affect the deep- 

 sea fisheries, the right to which remained unquestioned and unim- 

 paired for the enjoyment of the citizens of the United States, but 

 further to diminish and practically to destroy the privileges expressly 

 secured to American fishing vessels to visit those inshore waters for 

 the objects of shelter, repair of damages, and purchasing wood, and 

 obtaining water. 



Since 1818, certain important changes have taken place in fishing in 

 the regions in question, which have materially modified the conditions 

 under which the business of inshore fishing is conducted and which 

 must have great weight in any present administration of the treaty. 



Drying and curing fish, for which a use of the adjacent shores was 

 at one time requisite, is now no longer followed, and modern invention 

 of processes of artificial freezing, and the employment of vessels of a 

 larger size, permit the catch and direct transportation of fish to the 

 markets of the United States without recourse to the shores con- 

 tiguous to the fishing grounds. 



The mode of taking fish inshore has also been wholly changed, and 

 from the highest authority on such subjects I learn that bait is no 

 longer needed for such fishing, that purse-seines have been substituted 

 for the other methods of taking mackerel, and that by their employ- 

 ment these fish are now readily caught in deeper waters entirely ex- 

 terior to the three-mile line. 



As it is admitted that the deep-sea fishing was not under considera- 

 tion in the negotiation of the treaty of 1818, nor was affected thereby, 

 and as the use of bait for inshore fishing has passed wholly into disuse, 

 the reasons which may have formerly existed for refusing to permit 

 American fishermen to catch or procure bait within the line of a 

 marine league from the shore lest they should also use it in the same 

 inhibited waters for the purpose of catching other fish, no longer 

 exist. 



For it will, I believe, be conceded as a fact that bait is no longer 

 needed to catch herring or mackerel, which are the objects of inshore 

 fishing, but is used, and only used, in deep-sea fishing, and, therefore, 

 to prevent the purchase of bait or any other supply needed in deep- 

 sea fishing, under color of executing the provisions of the treaty of 

 1818, would be to expand that convention to objects wholly beyond its 

 purview, scope, and intent, and give to it an effect never contemplated 

 by either party, and accompanied by results unjust and injurious 

 to the citizens of the United States. 



As, therefore, there is no longer any inducement for American 

 fishermen to " dry and cure " fish on the interdicted coasts of the 

 Canadian Provinces, and as bait is no longer used or needed by them 

 [for the prosecution of inshore fishing] in order to " take " fish in the 

 inshore waters to which the treaty of 1818 alone relates, I ask you to 

 consider the results of excluding American vessels, duly possessed of 

 permits from taeir own Government to touch and trade at Canadian 

 ports as well as to engage in deep sea-fishing, from exercising freely 



