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.III liiiMilHi..,,.A*..-.. 



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liberty of Jjoinp; over thrso fishinpj grounds, and tlirnwinc: ovorbo.ird onr costly bail, 



and (Miiliiirkinj;- our industry, capital, and skill, in lite alli mpt to calfli the llsh ? Wo 

 venture to sav tlia* >vt' have liad many years of exiierienee, and lliat tlien? liave been 

 Ion;; periods of time wlien lliose tislieries lia\c been opened to us, and llie_\ liave In-en 

 closed for short ]H'riods of time ; tlial from 1S71 dosvn to I lie present lim(> we liave also bad 

 a fair t'St ; and wlien *ve show, by undisputed i •limony, liiat (lie ei(iz(Mis of the United 

 States, durin;;' lon^' ]teriods ol' limi", and as a result of loiv^- i xperieiiee, liave eome to the 

 conclusion tliat they nre not of sndicient vahie U) warrant them, as mi-reliaiits and as 

 men aclin^' for llieir own interests, to make niucli use of them, I submit tliat we have 

 brought before the tribunal a perfectly fair ari^nimcnt, and a very valualde test ; because 

 it is not what one man will do with one house ; it is not what one sliip-master or one 

 ship-owner may fancy about the inshore or tlie outsliore HsIk ries; bin il is a question 

 of what a large number of men, acting for their own interests, in a very large market, 

 full of competition, vill do. If, on iiupiiriim; into the stati> of that market, and the 

 conduct of such men, who cannot be governed by any ]ieculiar and special motive 

 bearing upon the case, we have produced a fair and intliiential consideration, we 

 claim that that is entitled to its fair wciglit. Vou might well say, perhaps, of a few 

 fishermen of Ghmccster, that so deep was their hostility to the British provinces, that 

 they would bo willing to abstain from using these fisheries, just for the purpose of 

 reducing the amount that this tribunal might find itself ealleil upon to adjudge. Hut, 

 if there should be one such man so endowed with disinterested malice, 1 am quite 

 certain that this tribunal will not believe so of the entire fishing community of buyers 

 and sellers, fishermen and merchants, acting for a series of years, in view of their own 

 interests. If, therefore, we have shown, as we certainly hav(\ that the use of this bay 

 fishery, as an entirety, the whole of it, deep-sea and inshore alike, has steadily diminished 

 in market value, that our ship-owners are withdrawing their vessels from it, that fewer 

 and fewer are sent liere every year, and that ll. 7 have said, man after man, that they 

 do not value the extension of the territorial privilege, wliere that extension is always 

 inshore, bringing them into more dangerous and less profitable regions — that being the 

 case, we ask your Honours to consider all this as fair proof of the slight value which 

 is actually put by business men, acting in their own interests, upon what has been 

 conceded to us. 



Now, what is this that has been conced(>d to u.s, or rather, what is this claim of 

 exclusion from which Great Britain has agreed to withdraw herself during the period of 

 this Treaty? What is the privilege? It is the privilege of trying to catch fish within 

 that limit. That is all it is. All attempt to measure it by the value of the tlsh in barrels 

 brouijht into the United States is perfectly futile and fallacious. A barrel of fish salted 

 and coopered and standing on the wharf in (Jloiicester represents something very 

 dilTerent from the value of a right to cross over a porlion of tiie seas and attempt to 

 catch the fish. It represents capital; it represents the interest on a ves.sel costing 

 8,000 dollars ; it represents the interest upon the whole outlay of a permanent character, 

 and it rejiresents the ab.solute cost of all the outlay which is of a perishable character ; 

 it represents the wages of skilled labour ; it represents mercantile capacity ; and if you 

 eliminate from the value of the mackerel standing upon the wliarf at Gloucester all 

 these elemcnt.s, and turn m(; back to the mere fact that there was some mackerel, more or 

 less, tliin, meagre, fat, or heavy, as we ])lease, to be found by the diligent and skilful 

 mariner within that Uttle fringe of this great garment, what do you sliow me at all by 

 which I can estimate its value .' And that is the whole of it. Furthermore, if you 

 take, instead of that, the value of the mackerel as it stands upon the wharf at Prince 

 Edward Island, soon after it is caught, 3 dol. 75 c. that represents, again, the interest 

 on the cost of the ship, and all the outfit, an<l all the labour, .aud all the skill, and all the 

 risk. Eliminate them, and wliat have you left ? You have nothing h'ft l)ut the right 

 or liberty to do som(>thing within certain limits; and that right is one any attemiit to 

 exclude us from which is very dangerous, micertain, and precarious. I do not know 

 what to liken it to. It certainly is not to be compared at all to a lease, because the 

 lessor furnishes cverythuig that the lease recpiires. Now, if in company with this 

 privilege, Great liritain had furnished the fi.sh, so that we should not have to employ 

 vessels, or men, or skill, or labour, or industry, furnished them to us on the wharf at 

 Prince Edward Island, then there might be some analogy between that and a lease. 

 What is it like ? Is it like the value of a privilege to practise law? Not quite, because 

 tliere always will bi^ lawsuits, but it is not sure that there always will be mackerel. 

 Suitors, irritated men, may be meshed within the seine wliieh ilie privileged lawyer may 

 cast out ; but it does not follow that tlu! mackerel can be. Gn the contrary, they are 

 so shrewd and so sharp that our fishermen tell us that they cannot use a seine within 



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