QUESTION ONE. 69 



usually only one voyage during the season, it is unreasonable to limit 

 in any way the number of days in which they may engage in fishing. 



Such laws are not reasonable from any standpoint, in view of the 

 peculiar nature of the fishing pursuit. Mackerel and herring and 

 other sea fishes which move in schools and visit the shores at certain 

 seasons only are elusive, appear at one place to-day and at another 

 to-morrow and the next day may have disappeared. They must be 

 taken whenever and wherever opportunity offers if they are to be 

 taken at all. 



It is submitted further that prohibitions against sea-fishing on 

 Sunday is not reasonable in the sense that it is desirable on grounds 

 of public morals. Those whose pursuits are on the great deep 

 may well be said to be engaged in works of necessity and 

 not to be included in the divine command against labor on the 

 Sabbath day. Such is the manner of looking on the efforts of men 

 engaged in other branches of maritime life, and equal indulgence is 

 due the brave and hardy men who pursue their calling on the seas in 

 the frail crafts of the fishermen. It is believed that fishermen en- 

 gaged in vessel-fisheries the world over fish on Sunday and that laws 

 against such fishing are unknown in most Christian countries. More- 

 over, Sunday laws are not based on the idea of enforcing the religious 

 command, but on the policy of not permitting in public open and 

 flagrant disregard of the religious sense of the people. It can hardly 

 be pretended that the people on shore can be seriously shocked in their 

 religious sensibilities by the Sunday fishing of American vessels on 

 the treaty coasts. 



Finally, it is to be observed that the laws adopted by Newfoundland 

 prohibiting Sunday fishing are not based on any principle of con- 

 serving public morals. The only kind of fishing on Sunday which is 

 prohibited is the taking of herring with seines. and the inhabitants 

 are at liberty to engage as fully as they may think proper in the tak- 

 ing of all other kinds of fish. This prohibition clearly has nothing to 

 do with public morals and evidently is based upon some policy of 

 local convenience with which the United States has no concern ex- 

 cept that it applies to the kind of fishing in which the American 

 fishermen are chiefly interested. 



U. S. Case, Appendix, 202. 



