QUESTION ONE. 29 



This clause has no application to such fishery regulations as are 

 now being dealt with. 



In the Counter- Case of the United States reliance is placed upon 

 an alleged correspondence between the British statutes passed with 

 reference to the two treaties the treaty between Great Britain and 

 France and that between Great Britain and the United States. It 

 says 



" It is of peculiar significance, therefore, that the legislation 

 adopted by Great Britain in 1819 for the purpose of carrying out 

 its obligations to American fishermen under the treaty of 1818 should 

 in effect correspond exactly to the legislation adopted by Great 

 Britain in 1788 for the purpose of carrying out its obligations to the 

 French fishermen under its treaty of 1783, (which will be found to 

 be the case upon a comparison of the provisions of the Act of 1788 

 and the Act of 1819, which has already been examined) ; and that, 

 as has already been shown, the regulations adopted by Great Britain 

 under the Act of 1819, in relation to the liberty of the American 

 fishermen to take fish on the treaty coasts under the treaty of 1818, 

 were directed not against American fishermen, but against British 

 subjects, and required them ' not to interrupt in any manner the 

 aforesaid fishery ' carried on by the inhabitants of the United States 

 on their treaty coasts. (United States Counter-Case, p. 18.) 



" It is, therefore, evident that at the time the treaty of 1818 was 

 made, Great Britain claimed no more authority to impose fishing 

 regulations upon the American fishermen under that treaty than 

 upon the French fishermen under their treaty of 1783; and that by 

 adopting these acts of Parliament for the purpose of carrying out 

 the British obligations under respectively the French treaty of 1783 

 and the American treaty of 1818, and by the course pursued by Great 

 Britain in giving these treaties effect, the British Government gave 

 notice to all concerned that in both cases alike the controlling obli- 

 gation imposed upon Great Britain by these treaties was non-inter- 

 ference with the French and American fishermen in the exercise of 

 their liberty of fishing on their respective treaty coasts." 



But the only correspondence between the statutes is that both were 

 passed for the purpose of giving effect to fishing treaties. Each was 

 suited to its own circumstances. And it is in their marked contrast, 

 and not in their similarity, that significance lies. The statute re- 

 lating to the French treaty (28 Geo. Ill, c. 35) is entitled 



"An Act to enable His Majesty to make such Regulations as may 

 be necessary to prevent the inconvenience which might arise from 

 the competition of His Majesty's subjects and those of the Most 

 Christian King, in carrying on the Fishery on the Coasts of the 

 Island of Newfoundland" (British Case, App., p. 562.) 



The enacting part of the act is in express terms confined to the 

 prevention of British subjects from interrupting the French fishery 



by competition in accordance with the declaration of 1783. 

 34 And for this purpose it enabled His Majesty to give orders for 



the removal of British apparatus on the shore and of British 



92909 S. Doc. 870, 61-3, vol 8 20 



