980 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 



The language of the Treaty of 1818 was taken from the Illrd 

 Article of the Treaty of 1783. The Treaty made at the same time 

 between Great Britain and France, the previous Treaty of the 10th 

 February, 1763, between Great Britain and France, and the Treaty of 

 Utrecht of the llth April, 1713, in like manner contained a general 

 grant to "the subjects of France" to take fish on the Treaty coast. 

 During all that period no suggestion, so far as I can learn, was ever 

 made that Great Britain had a right to inquire into the nationality 

 of the members of the crew employed upon a French vessel. 



Nearly two hundred years have passed during which the subjects 

 of the French King and the inhabitants of the United States have 

 exercised fishing rights under these grants made to them in these 

 general terms, and during all that time there has been an almost con- 

 tinuous discussion in which Great Britain and her Colonies have 

 endeavoured to restrict the right to the narrowest possible limits, 

 without a suggestion that the crews of vessels enjoying the right, or 

 whose owners were enjoying the right, might not be employed in the 

 customary way without regard to nationality. I cannot suppose 

 that it is now intended to raise such a question. 



I observe with satisfaction that the Memorandum assents to that 

 part of my second proposition to the effect that " an American vessel 

 seeking to exercise the Treaty right is not bound to obtain a licence 

 from the Government of Newfoundland," and that His Majesty's 

 Government agree that "no law of Newfoundland should be enforced 

 on American fishermen which is inconsistent with their rights under 

 the Convention." 



The views of His Majesty's Government, however, as to what laws 

 of the Colony of Newfoundland would be inconsistent with the Con- 

 vention if applied to American fishermen, differ radically from the 

 view entertained by the Government of the United States. Accord- 

 ing to the Memorandum, the inhabitants of the United States going 

 in their vessels upon the Treaty coast to exercise the Treaty right of 

 fishing are bound to enter and clear in the Newfoundland custom- 

 houses, to pay light dues, even the dues from which coasting and 

 fishing-vessels owned and registered in the Colony are exempt, to 

 refrain altogether from fishing except at the time and in the manner 

 prescribed by the Regulations of Newfoundland. The Colonial pro- 

 hibition of fishing on Sundays is mentioned by the Memorandum as 

 one of the Regulations binding upon the American fishermen. We 

 are told that His Majesty's Government "hold that the only ground 

 on which the application of any provisions of Colonial law to Ameri- 

 can vessels engaged in the fishery can be objected to is that it unrea- 

 sonably interferes with the American right of fishery." 



The Government of the United States fails to find in the Treaty 

 any grant of right to the makers of Colonial law to interfere at all, 

 whether reasonably or unreasonably, with the 'exercise of the Ameri- 

 can rights of fishery, or any right to determine what would be a rea- 

 sonable interference with the exercise of that American right if there 

 could be any interference. The argument upon which the Memo- 

 randum claims that the Colonial Government is entitled to interfere 

 with and limit the exercise of the American right of fishery, in ac- 

 cordance with its own ideas of what is reasonable, is based first, 

 upon the fact that, under the terms of the Treaty the right of the 

 inhabitants of the United States to fish upon the Treaty coast is 



