114 THE ARGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



expected to be and would necessarily be within the British terri- 

 torial jurisdiction for considerable periods, the privileges accorded 

 to them on the non-treaty coasts were exceptional, and by their 

 nature availed of only occasionally and in each case for only a short 

 time. 



LOCAL CONDITIONS ON NON-TREATY COASTS. 



The non-treaty coasts, to which the privileges under consideration 

 applied, had but few settlements in 1818 ; there were only four light- 

 houses on the entire coast, two of them within the Bay of Fundy 

 and two on the outside coast of Nova Scotia south of Halifax; and 

 the small and scattered settlements forbid the idea that there could 

 have been an extensive trade or that an extensive customs service 

 had then been organized. Throughout the entire extent of the non- 

 treaty coasts of Newfoundland, and from the Bay of Fundy to 

 Blanc Sablon on the coast of Labrador, embracing thousands of miles 

 of deeply indented shores, there were not a score of custom-houses 

 or ports of entry in the year 1818. Furthermore, with the consid- 

 erable population of today and the extensive trade on these coasts, 

 the ports of entry at which vessels must call, if required to report 

 at custom-houses, are still comparatively few in number and widely 

 separated. The cost of maintaining a customs officer in every bay 

 or harbor on such a coast would far outmeasure the value of any 

 possible protection to the revenues; and this fact, as well as the 

 physical character of the coasts, could not have escaped the attention 

 of the negotiators of the treaty of 1818. 



To require a fishing vessel seeking shelter, repairs, wood, or water 

 in any of these bays or harbors to go out of its way to find a port 

 of entry, possibly a hundred miles distant, in order to report that 

 it had availed itself of a treaty privilege, would be intolerable, and 

 render the enjoyment of the privilege so onerous that it would prac- 

 tically destroy its value. Nevertheless, this Tribunal is asked by Great 

 Britain to find that the negotiators of the treaty of 1818, in secur- 

 ing to American fishing vessels the privilege of seeking these neigh- 

 boring and friendly shelters, intended to attach to the enjoyment of 

 the privilege conditions so burdensome and difficult of performance. 

 The bare statement of the proposition is its own refutation. 



