TWENTIETH MEETING. 33 



A communication was read from the President of the Com- 

 mittee of Organization of the International Congress of Mari- 

 time Affairs, to be held in Paris in the month of October ; 

 also from the Geological and Mining Section requesting the 

 Institute to appoint a committee to wait on the Government 

 with reference to the establishment of a Mineral Museum ; 

 also from the Antiquarian and Numismatic Society of Mont- 

 real enclosing a petition to the Hon. Minister of Finance for 

 the Dominion of Canada, praying that the present duty of 15 

 per cent, ad valorem on printed books be changed to a specific 

 duty of six cents per pound weight avoirdupois. It was re- 

 solved that the petition be signed and transmitted to the 

 Government. 



Mr. T. B. Browning, M.A., read a paper on the " French 

 Shore Question." 



He began bj saying that he adopted the above title not because it 

 described the siibject matter he was to speak of accurately, but be- 

 cause the name was well known to the public, and brought the chief 

 portion of the international complication into clear relief. He would 

 himself prefer the heading The French North American Fisheries. 

 From 1629 to 1886 no less than 20 treaty conventions or declarations 

 had been made regarding them \ many of the older arrangements had 

 been superseded, and certain of the later had never been ratified. 

 Three ideas seemed to run through them all, to be granted on both 

 sides and to form, as it were, the underlying basis of negotiations : 

 (1) That the fisheries are one and not several; (2) that they are the 

 national property of Britain : and (3) consist only of the codfish and 

 such, minor species as are used for bait. The latest treaty is that of 

 November 20, 1815, which confirmed the settlement of the previous 

 year, 30th May, 1814, Article XTII. of which specified the places 

 Tvhere the French exercise the rights granted them by previous agree- 

 ments. These places are : 



(1) The gulf of St. Lawrence, at a distance of three leagues from 

 the coast of continent and islands, 15 leagues from Cape Breton, and 

 30 from Nova Scotia. 

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