CORRESPONDENCE 433 



Articles from which United States' fishermen derive their privileges, viz., to purchase 

 wood, to obtain water, to dry nets, and cure fish. 



The citizens of the United States are thus by clear implication absolutely precluded 

 from the use of the shore in the direct act of catching fish. This view was maintained 

 in the strongest manner before the Halifax Commission by the United States' Agent, 

 who, with reference to the proper interpretation to be placed on the Treaty stipula- 

 tions, used the following language: "No rights to do anything upon the land are 

 conferred upon the citizens of the United States under this Treaty, with the single 

 exception of the right to dry nets and cure fish on the shores of the Magdalen 

 Islands, if we did not possess that before. No right to land for the purpose of sein- 

 ing from the shore; no right to the ' strand fishery' as it has been called; no right 

 to do anything except, water-borne on our vessels, to go within the limits which had 

 been previously forbidden." 



" So far as the herring trade goes, we could not, if we were disposed to, carry it 

 on successfully under the provisions of the Treaty; for this herring trade is substan- 

 tially a seining from the shore — a strand fishing, as it is called — and we have no 

 right anywhere conferred by this Treaty to go ashore and seine herring any more than 

 we have to establish fish-traps." 



Her Majesty's Government, therefore, cannot anticipate that any difference of 

 opinion will be found to exist between the two Governments on this point. 



The incident now under discussion occurred on that part of the shore of Fortune 

 Bay which is called Tickle Beach, Long Harbor. On this Beach is situated the fishing 

 settlement of Mark Bolt, a British fisherman, who, in his evidence taken upon oath, 

 deposed as follows: "The ground I occupy was granted me for life by Government, 

 and for which I have to pay a fee. There are two famihes on the Beach; there were 

 three in winter. Our living is dependent on our fishing off this settlement. If these 

 large American seines are allowed to be hauled it forces me away from the place." 



John Saunders, another British fisherman of Tickle Beach, deposed that the United 

 States' fishermen hauled their seine on the beach immediately in front of his property. 



The United States' fishermen, therefore, on the occasion in question, not only 

 exceeded the limits of their Treaty privileges by fishing from the shore, but they "inter- 

 fered with the rights of private property and with British fishermen in the peaceable 

 use of that part of the coast in their occupancy for the same purpose," contrary to 

 the express provisions of Articles XVIII and XXXII of the Treaty of Washington. 

 Further, they used seines for the purpose of in-barring herrings, and this leads me 

 to the consideration of the second question, viz. : whether United States fishermen 

 have the right to take herrings with a seine at the season of the year in question,_or 

 to use a seine at any season of the year for the purpose of barring, herrings on the coast 

 of Newfoundland. 



The in-barring of herrings is a practice most injuiieius, and, if continued, calcu- 

 lated in time to destroy the fishery; consequently it/fias been prohibited by Statute 

 since 1862. 



In my note to Mr. Welsh of the 7th Noveniber, 1878, I stated "that British 

 sovereignty as regards these waters is limited in its scope by the engagements of the 

 Treaty of Washington, which cannot be modified of affected by any municipal legis- 

 lation;" and Her Majesty's Government fully kdmit that United States' fishermen 

 have the right of participation on the Newfoumdland inshore fisheries, in common 

 with British subjects, as specified in Article XVIII of that Treaty. But it cannot be 

 claimed, consistently with this right of participation in common with the British 



