1276 MISCELLANEOUS. 



A report on Canso has become a regular legislative duty in the 

 Assembly of Nova Scotia. The little colonial world will soon be 

 gratified with another labored effort to show that our countrymen 

 have "no right to pass through one of her Majesty's possessions." I 

 commend to the committee or 1853 the passages which I have quoted, 

 and which relate to the duties of nations in time of peace. I have the 

 presumption, too, to suggest to the Queen's advocate, and her 

 Majesty's attorney general, that though Selden was among the lights 

 of his age, and though his Mare Glausum was once high authority, 

 yet that since the progress of civilization has modified some, and 

 changed other, rules of international law, it is time that the old and 

 barbarous doctrine of exclusion from the navigation of internal 

 straits between the main land and islands, as applied to vessels under 

 sail, and making a direct voyage, ceased to distress the mariners of 

 one Christian country when within the jurisdiction of another. Two 

 centuries ago,* when Selden, and his great antagonist, Grotius, wrote 

 their celebrated treatises, it was the practice, under the public law, to 

 confiscate the debts due to the subjects of an enemy at the com- 

 mencement of hostilities ; to regard an enemy as an outlaw and as a 

 criminal, who had no right to hfe, even when unarmed and defence- 

 less ; to use poisoned weapons, employ assassins, violate females, and 

 sell prisoners into slavery; and to confiscate, as contraband, pro- 

 visions when in transitu to feed starving noncombatants and famish- 

 ing women and children. If the abstract right exist to close Canso 

 in time of peace against vessels under sail, it belongs to the same class 

 of inhuman rules of the international code. "The English," says 

 Montesquieu, "have made the protection of foreign merchants one of 

 the articles of their national liberty." I commend the sentiment 

 to the consideration of the English crown lawyers. 



But let us take a practical view of the question before us. The 

 peninsula of Nova Scotia is bounded on the northeast by the strait, or 

 /gut," of which we are speaking, and is separated by it from the large 

 island of Cape Breton. To save the long, difficult, and at some times 

 of the year the dangerous voyage round this island, our vessels are in' 

 the constant practice of passing through Canso. The strait is lighted ; 

 and our flag contributes liberally to support all the light-houses on the 

 coast. The "light-money" exacted is, indeed, so enormous the 

 benefit afforded considered that our ship-owners complain of the 

 exactions continually.! It is apparent at a glance that the sailing of a 



* Selden died in 1654; Grotius in 1645. 



t The United States consul at Pictou, Nova Scotia, thus wrote to Mr. Forsyth, Secre- 

 tary of State, in 1839: "The tax of six and two- thirds cents per ton register of shipping, 

 collected by the province of Nova Scotia at the Strait of Canso, is levied on British ag 

 well as foreign ships; but it becomes a heavy charge on American vessels making four 

 or five trips a year to this port, in the coal trade; and as there is no impost on shipping 

 in American ports for the support of lights on the coast of the United States, such a tax 

 on American vessels in the ports of the British colonies involves a discrepance in the 

 terms of intercourse between the two countries, although it professes to be based on 

 strict reciprocity." 



The Gloucester Telegraph, a paper which is authority on all matters connected with 

 the fisheries, contained the following article, August, 1852: 



"LIGHT DUTY AT THE BAY. One of the most grievous things which our fishermen 

 have to submit to at the Bay of St. Lawrence, is the payment of a light-duty. Our 

 vessels have for years been obliged to pay this duty at the Gut of Canso, which is a tax 

 upon the town of Gloucester alone of $1,000 a year. This year every vessel which 

 visits the harbor of Prince Edward Island is obliged to pay another tax, which is called 



