QUESTION ONE. 79 



In reply Mr. Evarts, on August 1, 1879, again took up matter of 

 local regulations limiting the American fishermen in the time and 

 manner of fishing, and placed the American contention on absolutely 

 impregnable grounds. 



Lord Salisbury did not controvert the main propositions of Mr. 

 Evarts's letter, but on August 30, 1880, responding to a formal claim 

 for damages made by the United States in the interim, declined to 

 allow the claim and assigned as the sole ground for his action, that 

 the American fishermen when violently interrupted were using the 

 strand in their fishing operations contrary to the provisions of the 

 treaty, which reason need not be noticed here because not involving 

 any question of regulations, and, further, that they were inbarring 

 herrings contrary to the local law, which he claimed was in force at 

 the time the treaty of 1871 was entered into, and was thereby dis- 

 tinguished from the other breaches of the local laws mentioned by 

 him in his first letter. On the last point he said : 



In my note to Mr. Welch, of the 7th of November, 1878, I stated 

 " that British sovereignty, as regards these waters, is limited in its 

 scope by the engagements of the treaty of Washington, which cannot 

 be modified or affected by any municipal legislation," and Her 

 Majesty's Government fully admit that United States fishermen have 

 the right of participation on the Newfoundland inshore fisheries in 

 common with British subjects, as specified in Article XVIII of the 

 treaty. But it cannot be claimed, consistently with this right of 



Participation in common with the British fishermen, that the United 

 tates fishermen have any other, and still less that they have greater 

 rights than the British fishermen had at the date of the treaty. 



If, then, at the date of the signature of the treaty of Washington, 

 certain restraints were, by the municipal law, imposed upon the 

 British fishermen, the United States fishermen were, by the express 

 terms of the treaty, equally subjected to those restraints, and the 

 obligation to observe in common with the British the then existing 

 local laws and regulations, which is implied by the words " in com- 

 mon " attached to the United States citizens as soon as they claimed 

 the benefit of the treaty. 6 



This correspondence is important on account of the vigorous and 

 convincing manner in which Mr. Evarts maintained that American 

 fishermen, under the treaty of 1871, were exempt from limitations on 

 their fishery imposed by imperial or colonial laws or regulations, and 

 also on account of Lord Salisbury's concessions, which were 



First. That British sovereignty over the inshore fisheries was 

 limited in its scope by the stipulations of the Treaty of Washington, 

 which could not be modified or affected by any local legislation. 



U. S. Case, Appendix, 661 et seq. 



6 U. S. Case, Appendix, 685. 



