1248 MISCELLANEOUS. 



it would not be necessary for this legislature to put any restrictions 

 upon their use of the passage in question; but as the onus has been 

 thrown upon this legislature, it is clearly its duty to adopt the most 

 efficient and least expensive means of protection. If the privilege of 

 passage is exercised through the Gut of Canso and the bay in question, 

 it is next to impossible to prevent encroachments and trespasses upon 

 our fishing grounds by American citizens, as it would require an 

 expensive coast-guard by night and day to effect that object, and then 

 only partial success would result. It would be unreasonable to tax 

 the people of this country to protect a right which should not be 

 invaded by foreigners, and which can only be invaded and encroached 

 upon by our permitting foreigners to use a passage to which they are 

 not entitled. Without, therefore, any desire unnecessarily to hamper 

 American citizens in the enjoyment of that to which they are justly 

 entitled, your committee consider it their imperative duty to recom- 

 mend sucn measures for the adoption of the House as will in the most 

 effectual way protect the true interests of this country. The outlay 

 necessarily required to watch properly the operations of foreign fishing 

 vessels in the Bay of St. George, so as to prevent encroachments, 

 amounts to a prohibition of its being accomplished ; and it therefore 

 becomes indispensable that such vessels be prohibited from passage 

 through the Gut of Canso. The strait will always be, to vessels of 

 all classes, a place of refuge in a storm, and American fishing vessels 

 will be entitled to the use of it as a harbor for the several purposes 

 mentioned in the treaty. It can be visited for all those purposes 

 without a passage through being permitted; and your committee 

 therefore recommend that an act be passed authorizing the governor, 

 by and with the advice of his executive council, by proclamation, 

 either to impose a tax upon foreign fishing vessels for such amount as 

 may be provided in the act, or to prohibit the use of such passage 

 altogether." 



It is of consequence to remark, that, as far as there is evidence 

 before the public, the fisheries were not once mentioned by Mr. 

 McLane, (who succeeded Mr. Everett,) in his correspondence with 

 the British government, during his mission. Nothing, in fact, seems 

 to have passed between the two cabinets relative to the subject for 

 more than six years, though England retraced no step after opening 

 the Bay of Fundy. Our public documents do show, however, that, 

 between the years 1847 and 1851, overtures were made to our gov- 

 ernment for a free interchange of all natural productions" of the 

 United States and of the British American colonies with each other, 

 either by treaty stipulations or by legislation. In the first-mentioned 

 year, Canada passed an act embracing this object, which was to 

 become operative whenever the United States should adopt a similar 

 measure. A bill to meet the act of Canada was introduced into Con- 

 gress, and pressed by its friends, for three successive sessions, but 

 failed to become a law. That the people of Canada were "disap- 

 pointed," is a fact officially communicated to Mr. Webster, Secretary 

 of State, by Sir Henry Bulwer, the British minister. It is not impos- 

 sible that the existence of this feeling will sufficiently explain why the 

 Canadian government became a party to the following agreement, 

 which was signed at Toronto, on the 21st of June, 1851, at a meeting 



