74 THE ARGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



license system for foreign fishing vessels had been lately discontinued 

 by the Canadian government. There was no controversy at that time 

 of any kind about American rights on the treaty coasts, and it was 

 necessary for the British Case to detach from its context the state- 

 ment of Mr. Boutwell in order to give it an unwarranted application 

 to the treaty coasts. 



THE HALIFAX ARBITRATION AND AWARD. 



Under the treaty of 1871, which in its grant of fishing rights is 

 in effect the same as with that of 1818 ; that is to say, the right was to 

 inhabitants of the United States in common with British subjects, the 

 question whether the fishing rights of Americans in the British in- 

 shore waters exceeded in value those of the British in American 

 inshore waters plus the commercial rights conceded to Great Britain 

 by the treaty, and, if so, to what extent, was submitted to the Halifax 

 tribunal consisting of one arbitrator from each nation and a neutral 

 umpire. The proceeding was an international arbitration and each 

 nation submitted its case in due and regular form and followed that 

 submission with written and oral arguments. The British case 

 claimed an award against the United States of $2,880,000 for the new 

 fishing privileges on the coasts of Newfoundland, and of $12,000,000 

 for those on the other coasts of British North America, or a grand 

 total of $14,880,000. 



The Tribunal awarded against the United States the payment of 

 the gross sum of $5,500,000. 6 



An examination of the case presented by Great Britain at Halifax 

 in support of its demand will show : 



First. That Great Britain then assumed, for the purposes of the 

 enormous award which it claimed against the United States and 

 which it received, although not to the full extent claimed, that the 

 grant of a fishing right to inhabitants of the United States " in 

 common " with British subjects was not the restricted right now 

 claimed to be implied by those words, but that the grant ceded and 

 conveyed the entire freedom of the fisheries in their natural extent. 



Second. That this entire freedom extended to the point of deplet- 

 ing and possibly destroying, the inshore fisheries through the un- 

 limited exercise of such right in any and all seasons of the year, and 



TJ. S. Counter Case, Appendix, 555. 

 B U. S. Case, Appendix, 1115. 



