978 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 



Having offered these general remarks, His Majesty's Government 

 desire to point out that, in discussing the general effects of "The 

 Foreign Fishing- Vessels Act, 1905," on the American fishery under 

 the Convention of 1818, the United States' Government confine them- 

 selves to sections 1 and 3 and make no reference to section 7, which 

 preserves "the rights and privileges granted by Treaty to the subjects 

 of any State in amity with His Majesty." In view of this provision, 

 His Majesty's Government are unable to agree with the United States' 

 Government in regarding the provisions of sections 1 and 3 as ' 'consti- 

 tuting a warrant to the officers named to interfere with and violate" 

 American rights under the Convention of 1818. On the contrary, 

 they consider section 7 as, in effect, a prohibition of any vexatious 

 interference with the exercise of the Treaty rights whether of American 

 or of French fishermen. As regards section 3, they admit that the 

 possession by inhabitants of the United States of any fish and gear 

 which they may lawfully take or use in the exercise of their rights 

 under the Convention of 1818 cannot properly be made primd facie 

 evidence of the commission of an offence, and, bearing in mind the 

 provisions of section 7, they cannot believe that a Court of Law would 

 take a different view. 



They do not, however, contend that the Act is as clear and explicit 

 as, in the circumstances, it is desirable that it should be, and they 

 propose to confer with the Government of Newfoundland with the 

 object of removing any doubts which the Act in its present form may 

 suggest as to the power of His Majesty to fulfil his obligations under 

 the Convention or 1818. 



On the concluding part of Mr. Root's note it is happily not necessary 

 for His Majesty's Government to offer any remarks, since the fishing 

 season has come to an end without any attempt on the part of British 

 fishermen to interfere with the peaceful exercise of the American 

 Treaty right of fishery. 



Mr. Root to Mr. Whitelaw Reid. 



DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, June SO, 1906. 



SIR: The memorandum inclosed in the note from Sir Edward Grey 

 to you of the 2nd February, 1906, and transmitted by you on the 6th 

 Feoruary, has received careful consideration. 



The letter which I had the honour to address to the British 

 Ambassador in Washington on the 19th October last stated with 

 greater detail the complaint in my letter to him of the 12th October, 

 1905, to the effect that the local officers of Newfoundland had 

 attempted to treat American ships as such, without reference to the 

 rights of their American owners and officers, refusing to allow such 

 ships sailing under register to take part in the fishing on the Treaty 

 coast, although owned and commanded by Americans, and limiting 

 the exercise of the right to fish to ships having a fishing licence. 



In my communications the Government of the United States 

 objected to this treatment of ships as such that is, as trading- vessels 

 or fishing- vessels, and laid down a series of propositions regarding the 

 treatment due to American vessels on the Treaty coast, based on the 

 view that such treatment should depend, not upon the character of 



