172 FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE 



honor to make to you upon this subject would be considered as affording in 

 a sufficient degree the advantages which were deemed requisite." 



I ask you to observe that phrase — 



"such accommodation ... as may be consistent with the proper adminis- 

 tration of His Majesty's dominions." 



And you will see, as we go on with this correspondence, that 

 what dwelt in the minds of the British negotiators was that it was 

 not consistent with proper administration and control on the part 

 of His Majesty's Government to have the United States granted 

 access to these coasts. It was an interference with due administra- 

 tion; and so they proposed to shove them off to the coast of Labra- 

 dor, where there was not anybody but cod-fish and whales and 

 icebergs — or this Uttle strip of the south coast of Newfoundland. 



Over on the next page, 290, Mr. Bagot goes on to say: 



"It is not necessary for me to advert to the discussion which has taken 

 place between Earl Bathurst and Mr. Adams. In the correspondence was 

 a full exposition of the grounds upon which the liberty of drying and fishing ■ 

 within the British limits, as granted to the citizens of the United Slates by 

 the treaty of 1783, was considered to have ceased with the war, and not to 

 have been revived by the late treaty of peace. 



"You will also have seen therein detailed the serious considerations affect- 

 ing not only the prosperity of the British fishery, but the general interests 

 of the British dominions, in matters of revenue as well as government, which 

 made it incumbent upon His Majesty's Government to oppose the renewal 

 of so extensive and injurious a concession, within the British sovereignty 

 to a foreign state, founded upon no principle of reciprocity or adequate 

 compensation whatever." 



Then, towards the foot of that page, he refers to his offer of the 

 coast of Labrador; and then he refers to an alternative offer that 

 he had made of the south coast of Newfoundland from Cape Ray 

 to Ramea Islands — this same one which is now included in the 

 treaty, as an alternative to the Labrador coast — either one or the 

 other. And he goes on to say in the last paragraph of this letter: 



"The advantages of this portion of coast are accurately known to the 

 British Government; and, in consenting to assign it to the uses of the American 

 fishermen, it was certainly conceived that an accommodation was afforded 

 as ample as it was possible to concede, without abandoning that control within 

 the entire of His Majesty's own harbors and coasts which the essential interests 

 of His Majesty's dominions required." 



