908 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 



As part of the general case, and as bearing with unusual clearness 

 upon the Canadian claims of construction of the convention of 1818, 1 

 transmit herewith copies of a note from Sir Lionel West, dated the 

 28th ultimo, inclosing a dispatch from Lord Lansdowne, governor- 

 general of Canada, to Mr. Stanhope, dated November 9, 1886, which is 

 accompanied by reports of the committee of the privy council for 

 Canada, and or Mr. Thompson, the minister of Justice at Ottawa. 



It may be noted that this reply of the British minister at this capital 

 to my note to him of May 20, 1886, is dated on the 28th ultimo, giving 

 some eight months for the completion of the circuit of correspondence. 



At page 15 of the printed inclosure and in the last paragraph will 

 be found the explicit avowal of claim by the Canadian Government to 

 employ the convention of 1818 as an instrument of interference with 

 the exercise of open-sea fishing by citizens of the United States, and to 

 give it such a construction as will enable the fishermen of the prov- 

 inces better to compete at less " disadvantage in the markets of the 

 United States " in the pursuit of the deep-sea fisheries. 



At the outset of this discussion, in my note to Sir Lionel West, of 

 May 10, 1886, I said : 



" The question, therefore, arises whether such a construction is 

 admissible as would convert the treaty of 1818 from being an instru- 

 mentality for the protection of the inshore fisheries along the de- 

 scribed parts of the British American coasts into a pretext or means 

 of obstructing the business of deep-sea fishing by citizens of the 

 United States, and of interrupting and destroying the commercial 

 intercourse that since the treaty of 1818, and independent of any 

 treaty whatever, has grown up and now exists under the concur- 

 rent and friendly laws and mercantile regulations of the respective 

 countries." 



When I wrote this I hardly expected that the motives I suggested, 

 rather than imputed, would be admitted by the authorities of the 

 provinces, and was entirely unprepared for a distinct avowal thereof, 

 not only as regards the obstruction of deep-sea fishing operations by 

 our fishermen, but also in respect of their independent commercial 

 intercourse, yet it will be seen that the Canadian minister of justice 

 avers that it is " most prejudicial " to the interests of the provinces 

 " that United States fishermen should be permitted to come into their 

 harbors on any pretext." 



The correspondence now sent to you, together with others relating 

 to the same subject that has taken place since the President's message 

 of December 8, communicating the same to Congress, will be laid 

 before Congress without delay, and will assist the two houses mate- 

 rially in the legislation proposed for the security of the rights of 

 American fishing vessels under treaty and international law and 

 comity. 



" I am, etc., T. F. BAYARD. 



The Marquis of Salisbury to Mr. White. 



FOREIGN OFFICE, March %4, 1887. 



SIR: In a note of the 3d December last, addressed to my prede- 

 cessor, Mr. Phelps was good enough to transmit a copy of a dispatch 

 from Mr. Bayard, dated the 15th of the preceding month, together 



