IS8 FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE 



of coast, all of Newfoundland, east and south and west, all of 

 Labrador, both the Newfoundland Labrador and the Canadian 

 Labrador, aU of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, all of the 

 south coast of this part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence which joins the 

 River St. Lawrence — over all this tremendous stretch there was 

 no regulation of the exercise of the American Uberty of fishing, and 

 there never had been any when this treaty was made in 1818. 

 There was a river protection statute, up here in New Brunswick 

 (indicating on map), up the bay, and there was in here, in New 

 Brunswick (indicating on map), a Sunday regulation. 



Of course, there is no evidence whatever that any American 

 fisherman ever was subjected to that river regulation or ever was 

 subjected to that Sunday regulation. On the contrary, the evi- 

 dence is full and satisfactory the other way. In the first place, the 

 Tribunal will remember the very able and cogent argument of 

 Sir Robert Finlay to the effect that the Americans did not fish in 

 the bays at all prior to 1838: I think he brought down the absence 

 of fishing in the bays to too late a date. He put it at 1838, in quot- 

 ing Mr. Tuck; when Mr. Tuck had spoken of the time when the 

 mackerel fishing was transferred from our coasts to the south up 

 to the coast of the British possessions in North America, he had 

 referred to a statute of 1828, and Sir Robert thought that that was 

 a mistake for 1838. I do not think so. I think the beginning is 

 marked by that statute that Mr. Tuck referred to of 1828. But 

 there is no question whatever that back in 1818, and prior to 1818, 

 Sir Robert's statements are perfectly correct. They practically 

 were not fishing in the bays. What they were doing was fishing 

 for cod-fish on the banks — all these banks running along here 

 (indicating on map) outside the coast of Nova Scotia, along Sable 

 Island and Banquereau, which the fishermen up there now call 

 Quero, and up on all this series of banks clear up to the Grand 

 Bank of Newfoundland. There was a bounty paid for cod-fish. 

 They were cod fishermen. Herring fishery was unknown. Mack- 

 erel fishing had not moveti up to these regions at all. There were 

 plenty of mackerel down on the southern American coast below. 

 And then their sole use for these coasts, aside from curing and 

 drying, was to get bait for their cod-fishing, which earned them 

 their bounty and which furnished them with their great article of 



