CORRESPONDENCE 449 



committed by American fishermen during the past fishing season. This Regulation 

 has been in force for many years, and looking to the insignificant extent to which 

 American fishermen have exercised their right of fishery on the Treaty Coast in the 

 past, it cannot be regarded as having been made with the object of restricting the 

 enjoyment of that right. Both its reasonableness and its bona fides appear to His 

 Majesty's Government to be beyond question, and they trust that the United States' 

 Government will take steps to secure its observance in the future. 



As regards the treatment of American vessels from which American fishermen 

 exercise the Treaty right of fishery, His Majesty's Government are prepared to admit 

 that, although the Convention confers no rights on American vessels as such, yet 

 since the American fishery is essentially a ship fishery, no law of Newfoundland should 

 be enforced on American fishing-vessels which would unreasonably interfere with 

 the exercise by the American fishermen on board of their rights under the Conven- 

 tion. The United States' Government, on their part, admit, in Mr. Root's note, 

 that the Colonial Government are entitled to have an American vessel engaged in 

 the fishery refrain from violating any laws of Newfoundland not inconsistent with 

 the Convention, but maintain that if she does not purpose to trade, but only to fish, 

 she is not bound to enter at any Newfoundland custom-house. 



Mr. Root's note refers only to the question of entry inwards, but it is presumed 

 that the United States' Government entertain the same views on the question of 

 clearing outwards. At all events, American vessels have not only passed to the 

 fishing grounds in the inner waters of the Bay of Islands without reporting at a Colonial 

 custom-house, but have also omitted to clear on returning to the United States. In 

 both respects they have committed breaches of the Colonial Customs Law, which, 

 as regards the obligations to enter and to clear, makes no distinction between fishing- 

 and trading-vessels. 



His Majesty's Government regret not to be able to share the view of the United 

 States' Government that the provisions of the Colonial Law which impose those 

 obligations are inconsistent with the Convention of 1818, if applied to American vessels 

 which do not purpose to trade, but only to fish. They hold that the only ground on 

 which the application of any provisions of the Colonial Law. to American vessels 

 engaged in the fishery can be objected to is that it unreasonably interferes with the 

 exercise of the American right of fishery. 



It is admitted that the majority of the American vessels lately engaged in the 

 fishery on the western coast of the Colony were registered vessels, as opposed to licensed 

 fishing-vessels, and as such were at liberty both to trade and to fish. The produc- 

 tion of evidence of the United States' registration is therefore not sufiicient to estab- 

 lish that a vessel, in Mr. Root's words, "does not purpose to trade as well as fish," 

 and something more would seem clearly to be necessary. The United States' Govern- 

 ment would undoubtedly be entitled to complain if the fishery of inhabitants of the 

 United States were seriously interfered with by a vexatious and arbitrary enforce- 

 ment of the Colonial Customs laws, but it must be remembered that, in proceeding 

 to the waters in which the winter fishery is conducted, American vessels must pass 

 in close proximity to severa' custom-houses, and that in order to reach or leave the 

 grounds in the arms of the Bay of Islands, on which the fishery has been principally 

 carried on during the past season, they have sailed by no less than three custom- 

 houses on the shores of the bay itself. So that the obligation to report and clear 

 need not in any way have interfered with a vessel's operations. It must also be 

 remembered that a fishery conducted in the midst of, practically the only centers of 



