THE FISHERIES QUESTION 329 



Great Britain, and Ensign H. Kellogg, on the part of the 

 United States. The agent of the United States was Judge 

 Dwight B. Foster, assisted by Eichard H. Dana and W. 

 H. Trescott, as counsel. The British agent was Francis 

 C. Ford, assisted by counsel from each of the provinces 

 involved and from Newfoundland, six in all. 



The aggregate amount of compensation claimed by 

 Great Britain for the twelve years that the treaty was 

 certainly to remain in force was $14,880,000, or a yearly 

 amount of $1,240,000. Of this amount the sum of $2,880,- 

 000 was claimed on behalf of Newfoundland. On the 

 other hand, the United States claimed that the privilege 

 of free admission of Canadian and Newfoundland fish 

 into our markets was sufficient compensation to offset the 

 privileges of free fishing in British provincial waters. 

 The Commission, by a vote of two to one, the American 

 commissioner dissenting, awarded the sum of $5,500,000 

 on November 3rd, 1877. The United States paid this 

 amount with some grumbling and with a protest l against 



i This most unjust decision illustrates the folly of assuming that 

 the status of the fisheries for one period of years may stand as a 

 criterion for a future period. During the first year of the opera- 

 tion of the fisheries provisions of the Treaty of Washington, 1873, 

 which was by far the most prosperous one for the Americans of the 

 whole period of twelve years, there were 254 American vessels 

 fishing for mackerel within the Gulf of Saint Lawrence; the number 

 of barrels caught within the three-mile limit on a liberal estimate 

 was 25,670 barrels, which were valued at $268,508 in the United 

 States. (U. S. Fish Com., Report, 1881, p. 520.) The amount of the 

 catch and the value of the same fell off rapidly and steadily dur- 

 ing the following years of the treaty arrangement for inshore 

 fishing, so that by 1877, the year in which the Commission made the 

 award, only 60 American schooners availed themselves of the privilege 

 of fishing within the three-mile limit. These schooners secured 

 2,439 barrels of mackerel, valued at $27,072. In 1880 three schoon- 

 ers went to the Bay and in 1881 only one American schooner 

 fished there, securing 95 barrels of mackerel valued at $717. Yet 



