

425 



declared that if the American fishermen were kept out of our inshore water, an immense 

 amount of property thus invested would become useless, and the fishermen would be left 

 in want and beggary, or imprisoned in foreign jails. 



And in the House of Representatives Mr. Scudder, of Massachusetts, referring to this 

 subject, said : — 



"Tliese fieh aiu taken in the waters nearer the coast than the codfish are. A considerable 

 pro])(irtion, from one-third to one-half are taken on the coast, and in the bays and gidfs of the 

 British Provinces." 



Now, upon tiiat question, not only as to the value of our fisheries, but also as to the 

 proportion of the catch which is there taken, this seems to be very strong testimony 

 coming from an American statesman. He continues : — 



" Tlic inhabitants nf llie I'mvinces take many of them in boats and with seines. The boat and 

 aeine fishery is the nioru sutcessfid and ]irolilal)le, and would be pursued by our fishermen, were it not 

 for the .stipulations of the Convention of 181S, betwixt the United States and Great I5ritain, by which 

 it is contended that all the fisheries within three miles of the coast, with few unimportant exceptions, 

 are secured to the Provinces alone." 



Mr. Tuck, of New Hampshire, said : — 



"Tliis shore lisliery wliieli we have nMiounced, is of great value, and extremely important to 

 Anieriean fishermen. . . Fnjm the 1st of September to the close of the sea.son, the mackerel run 



near the sliore, ami it is next tn impossible for our vessels to olitain fares without takiut; fish within the 

 proliiI)iteil limits. The truth is, our fishermen need absohitely, and must have the thousands of miles 

 of sliore lisliery wliicli liave brun renounced, or tliey must always do an uncertain business." 



He may well call them thousands of miles, because we have shown by evidence here 

 that thev amount to no less than 11,900 square miles. He further says : — 



" If our mackerel men are ]irohibited from going within three miles of the shore, and are forcibly 

 kept away (ami uotliiuLr but force will do it) then they may as well give up their business first as last. 

 It will be always uncertain." 



This is a sijiniticant observation. We find through all these speeches allusions made 

 to the trouble which the course that had been adopted under the provisions of the Treaty 

 of 1818 towards the body of American fishermen coming on our shores to fish would con- 

 tinue to briuir upon the two countries, and that war was imminent. Why was this ? 

 Surely if the fi.shery on their coast is so valuable they can stay there, and if the fisheries on 

 our coast are so valueless tliey can stay away ! We have not asked them to come into 

 our waters. And it does appear to me that it comes with extremely bad grace from these 

 people to make cotn])Iaints that harsh measures are used to keep them out of them. 

 What right have they at all ? They have renounced all right. They have have solenmly, 

 as far back as IHIH, renounced any right to enter these waters, and that Convention is in 

 full force still, save as tein|)orarily affected by the Washington Treaty. We have no right, 

 except tcm])orarily. under the same Treaty, to enter their waters. But, according to the 

 argument of Mr. Dana, we have the right to enter them, because he says there are no 

 territorial water^ belonging to any country. In that sense you cannot be prevented from 

 fishing ill any waters, if I understand his proposition correctly ; and we therefore have the 

 right to go there and fisii. But wliat do the United States say ? They hold to no such 

 con.striietion of tiie law of nations. So far from that being the case, their own shore 

 fisheries cannot he touched by foreign fishermen, and even under the Treaty, by virtue of 

 which your lixeelleney and your Honours are now sitting, our fishermen have only the 

 ri'dit to tish on their shores from the 39th parallel of nortli latitude northward, not one 

 step— not one mile to tiie southward of that parallel can they go. The strongest possible 

 proclamation of sovereignty which one country can possibly hold out to another is here 

 held out by the Tnited States with regard to their territorial waters to England and to the 

 world ; and, yet, for tiie jjurpose of getting into our waters, we are told that, under the law 

 {;f nations, American lishernicn can come and demand complete freedom of access to 

 them ; but when it comes to their own waters that doctrine will not do at all. This is the 

 reductio ad aliKurihiin with a vengeance I Who ever heard anything like it! Here is a 

 solemn agreement wiiieli has been entered into between two countries, and yet wc have 

 complaiiUs — complaint after complaint— regarding the means which our Government have 

 exercised in order to keep these jieople from fishing in our waters, from which they are 

 inhibited bv a soienin Treaty. Why, it does not seem to me to be fair — not to use any 

 stronger term tliaii tiiat, and using the mildest possible term to chaiacterise it — to adopt 

 this tone. On tiie contrary, it is most unfair ; and here Mr. Tuck states that nothing but 



