THE AEGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



municipal courts in enforcing good faith, it is submitted that Great 

 Britain can not now be permitted to assert a construction of the 

 treaty of 1818 contrary to the construction which, before the Halifax 

 Tribunal, that Government placed on the identical language when 

 used in the treaty of 1871, and upon which construction it claimed 

 against the United States an award of $14,880,000 and received an 

 award of $5,500,000. 



The right of the United States was then treated as unlimited in 

 extent and might have been exercised to the entire destruction of the 

 inshore fisheries. It is now treated as such a limited right as Great 

 Britain, in the interest of the preservation of the fisheries, may see 

 fit to permit. 



According to the discussion at Halifax, it might be exercised in 

 winter or summer and no exception was made of the Sabbath day. 

 Now the preservation of the fisheries is said to require closed seasons, 

 and many restrictions on fishing at all seasons, and British morals 

 require that the fishing right be not exercised on Sunday. 



Likewise in the Halifax discussions purse seines were not regarded 

 as destructive and the sum of the award was largely increased 

 because American fishermen were known to have taken as high as 

 3,000 barrels of herring at a single haul with these improved appli- 

 ances. Fishing with trawls, (bultows) was another method of fish- 

 ing which, then was regarded as legitimate, but has since become 

 illegitimate and subject to British prohibition. 



The United States is far from suggesting that the positions taken 

 at Halifax by Great Britain were without foundation and for the 

 purpose of improperly swelling the award in that case. On the con- 

 trary it insists that the positions then taken by that Government as to 

 the nature and extent of the American fishing right were absolutely 

 sound, and that, whether Great Britain is willing or unwilling at the 

 present moment, justice and good faith will compel that Government 

 to abide by the incontestibly sound positions then taken. 



THE CARDWELL LETTER. 



Mr. Cardwell, British colonial secretary, in a letter to the Lords of 

 (he Admiralty (April 12, 1866), made the following observation in 

 connection with instructions to naval vessels, patroling the treaty 

 coasts: 



