70 ARGUMENT OP GREAT BRITAIN. 



Captain Forbes in Shelburne Harbour to conform to Canadian Cus- 

 toms regulations, or to punish him for their violation, is a more 

 unwarrantable stretch of power than ' that of a seizure on the high 

 seas of a ship unjustly suspected of being a slaver,' he makes a state- 

 ment which carries with it its own refutation. Customs regulations 

 are made by each country for the protection of its own trade and 

 commerce, and are enforced entirely within its own territorial juris- 

 diction ; while the seizure of a vessel upon the high seas, except under 

 extraordinary and abnormal circumstances, is an unjustifiable inter- 

 ference with the free right of navigation common to all nations. 



"As to Mr. Bayard's observation that by treatment such as that 

 experienced by the ' Everitt Steele ' ' the door of shelter is shut to 

 American fishermen as a class,' the Minister expresses his belief that 

 Mr. Bayaard cannot have considered the scope of such an assertion 

 or the inferences which might reasonably be drawn from it. 



" If a United States fishing vessel enters a Canadian port for 

 shelter, repairs or for wood and water her captain need have no diffi- 

 culty in reporting her as having entered for one of these purposes 

 and the ' Everitt Steele ' would have suffered no detention had her 

 captain on the 25th March simply reported his vessel to the 

 81 Collector. As it was, the vessel was detained for no longer 

 time than was necessary to obtain the decision of the Minister 

 of Customs, and the penalty for which it was liable was not enforced. 

 Surely Mr. Bayard does not wish to be understood as claiming for 

 United States fishing vessels total immunity from all Customs regu- 

 lations or as intimating that if they cannot exercise their privileges 

 unlawfully they will not exercise them at all." 



A part of Mr. Bayard's argument would apply to the case of 

 United States fishermen going on Canadian shore to obtain wood 

 or water; but he probably had not those privileges of the treaty in 

 mind. 



The matter was made the subject of a report by Mr. Daniel Man- 

 ning, the United States Secretary of the Treasury, to the Speaker 

 of the House of Representatives dated 10th January, 1887. He 

 characterized some colonial conduct as actuated by " unworthy and 

 petty spite," but he fully endorsed the British view as to the rea- 

 sonableness of colonial customs-laws. He said (British Case, App. p. 

 372) : 



" The head of this department, having the responsibility of en- 

 forcing the collection of duties upon such a vast number of imported 

 articles, under circumstances of so long a sea-coast and frontier line 

 to be guarded against the devices of smugglers, should not be in- 

 clined to under-estimate the solicitude of the local officers of the 

 Dominion of Canada to protect its own revenue from similar inva- 

 sion. The laws for the collection of duties on imports in force in the 

 United States and in the Dominion of Canada, respectively, will be 

 found, on comparison, to be on many points similar in their objects 

 and methods. They should naturally be similar, for both had, in the 

 beginning, the same common origin. In the United States, Congress 



