Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

After the termination of the Fishery Articles of the Treaty of Washington, in June last, it seemed to me then, and seems to me now, very hard that differences of opinion between the two Governments should cause loss to honest citizens, whose line of obedience might be thus rendered vague and uncertain, and their property be brought into jeopardy. Influenced by this feeling, I procured a temporary arrangement, which secured our fishermen full enjoyment of all Canadian fisheries, free from molestation, during a period which would permit discussion of a just international settlement of the whole Fishery Question; but other counsels prevailed, and my efforts further to protect fishermen from such trouble as you now suffer, were unavailing.

"At the end of the interval of six months the United States' authorities concluded to refrain from any attempt to negotiate for larger fishery rights for their people, and they have continued to enforce their Customs laws against the fishermen and people of Canada.

The least they could have been expected to do under these circumstances was to leave to the people of Canada the full and unquestioned enjoyment of the rights secured to them by Treaty.

The Government of Canada has simply insisted upon those rights, and has presented to the legal tribunals its claim to have them enforced.

The insinuations of ulterior motives, the imputations of unfriendly dispositions, and the singularly inaccurate representation of all the leading features of the questions under discussion may, it has been assumed, be passed by with little more comment. They are hardly likely to induce Her Majesty's Government to sacrifice the rights which they have heretofore helped our people to protect, and they are too familiar to awaken indignation or surprise.

The undersigned respectfully recommends that the substance of this memorandum, if approved, be forwarded to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, for the information of Her Majesty's Gov

ernment.

OTTAWA, 22nd July, 1886.

(Sd.)

JNO. S. D. THOMPSON,
Minister of Justice.

No. 209.-1886, July 23: Letter from the Earl of Rosebery to Mr.

Phelps.

FOREIGN OFFICE July 23 1886.

SIR, I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 16th instant, enclosing a copy of a telegram from Mr. Bayard, in which he calls upon Her Majesty's Government to put a stop to the action of Canadian authorities towards United States' fishermen, which he characterises as unjust, arbitrary, and vexatious.

Mr. Bayard further states that the readiness of the United States' Government to endeavour to come to a just and fair joint interpretation of Treaty rights and commercial privileges is ill met by persistent and unfriendly action of the Canadian authorities, which is rapidly producing a most injurious and exasperating effect.

342

I cannot help regretting that the tone of this communication should not have more corresponded with the conciliatory disposition of Her Majesty's Government, for the expressions which I have cited can hardly tend to facilitate a settlement of the difficult questions involved.

I beg, however, to state that the views of the Canadian Government upon the whole matter will very shortly be communicated to the United States' Government in a despatch which I have addressed to Her Majesty's Minister at Washington, in reply to the various communications which he has received from Mr. Bayard. I shall have the honour to place a copy of the despatch in question in your hands. As regards the disposition expressed by Mr. Bayard to come to a iust and fair joint interpretation of Treaty rights, Her Majesty's Government have already displayed their full readiness to negotiate on more than one occasion, and their view of Treaty rights has been explained both in my conversations with yourself and in despatches. I trust, therefore, that this expression of the wishes of your Government, corresponding as it does so entirely with our own desire, indicates the willingness of the United States to enter as speedily as possible into definite arrangements which may lead to negotiations on a practical basis for the settlement of this question.

I have, &c.,

(Signed)

ROSEBERY.

No. 210.-1886, July 23: Letter from the Earl of Rosebery to Sir L. S. S. West.

FOREIGN OFFICE, July 23, 1886.

SIR: I have received your dispatch No. 28 (Treaty,) of the 11th May last, inclosing a copy of a note addressed to you by Mr. Bayard, in which, whilst expressly referring to the seizure by the Canadian authorities of the American fishing vessels Joseph Story and David J. Adams, he discusses at length the present position of the North American Fisheries Question.

I have also received a communication upon the same subject from the United States Minister at this Court, dated the 2d June last. which, although advancing arguments of a somewhat different character, is substantially addressed to the consideration of the same question.

I think it therefore desirable to reply to these two communications together in the present despatch, of which I shall hand a copy to Mr. Phelps.

The matter is one involving the gravest interests of Canada; and, upon receipt of the communications above mentioned, I lost no time in requesting the Secretary of State for the Colonies to obtain from the Government of the Dominion an expression of their views thereon. I now inclose a copy of an approved Report of the Canadian Privy Council, in which the case of Canada is so fully set forth that I think it would be desirable, as a preliminary step to the further discussion of the questions involved in this controversy, to communicate a copy of it to Mr. Bayard, as representing the views of the Dominion Government; and I have to request that, in so doing, you will state that Her Majesty's Government will be glad to be favoured with any observations which Mr. Bayard may desire to make thereon.

In regard to those portions of Mr. Phelps's note of the 2d June, in which he calls in question the competence of the Canadian authorities

under existing Statutes, whether Imperial or Colonial, to effect seizures of United States fishing vessels under circumstances such as those which appear to have led to the capture of the David J. Adams, I have to observe that Her Majesty's Government do not feel themselves at present in a position to discuss that question, which is now occupying the attention of the Courts of Law in the Dominion, and which may possibly form the subject of an appeal to the Judicial Committee of Her Majesty's Privy Council in England.

It is believed that the Courts in Canada will deliver Judgment in the above cases very shortly; and until the legal proceedings now pending have been brought to a conclusion, Her Majesty's Government do not feel justified in expressing an opinion upon them, either as to the facts or the legality of the action taken by the Colonial authorities.

I do not, therefore, conceive it to be at present necessary to make any specific reply to Mr. Bayard's further notes of the 11th and 12th May and 1st, 2d, and 7th June last. But with regard to his note of the 20th May relative to the seizure of the United States fishing vessel Jennie and Julia, I inclose for communication to Mr. Bayard a copy of a Report from the Canadian Minister of Marine and Fisheries, dealing with this case.

I cannot, however, close this dispatch without adding that Her Majesty's Government entirely concur in that passage of the Report of the Canadian Privy Council, in which it is observed that "if the provisions of the Convention of 1818 have become inconvenient to either Contracting Party, the utmost that good-will and fair dealing can suggest is that the terms shall be reconsidered."

It is assuredly from no fault on the part of Her Majesty's Government that the question has now been relegated to the terms of the Convention of 1818. They have not ceased to express their anxiety to commence negotiations, and they are now prepared to enter upon a frank and friendly consideration of the whole question with the most earnest desire to arrive at a settlement consonant alike with the rights and interests of Canada and of the United States.

343

Where, as in the present case, conflicting interests are brought into antagonism by Treaty stipulations the strict interpretation of which has scarcely been called in question, the matter appears to Her Majesty's Government to be pre-eminently one for friendly negotiation.

I am, &c.

No. 211.-1886, August 9: Letter from Mr. Bayard to Mr. Hardinge (British Chargé d'Affaires at Washington).

1

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, 9th August, 1886. SIR-I regret that it has become my duty to draw the attention of Her Majesty's Government to the unwarrantable and unfriendly treatment, reported to me this day by the United States' Consul General at Halifax, experienced by the American fishing schooner" Rattler," of Gloucester, Mass., on the 3rd instant, upon the occasion of

her being driven by stress of weather to find shelter in the harbour of Shelburne, N. S.

She was deeply laden, and was off the harbour of Shelburne when she sought shelter in a storm, and cast anchor just inside the harbour's entrance.

She was at once boarded by an officer of the Canadian cutter "Terror" who placed two men on board.

When the storm ceased, the "Rattler" weighed anchor to proceed on her way home, when the two men placed on board by the "Terror" discharged their pistols as a signal, and an officer from the "Terror" again boarded the "Rattler" and threatened to seize the vessel unless the captain reported at the Custom House.

The vessel was then detained until the Captain reported at the Custom House, after which she was permitted to sail.

The hospitality which all civilised nations prescribe has thus been violated, and the stipulations of a treaty grossly infracted.

A fishing vessel denied all the usual commercial privileges in a port has been compelled strictly to perform commercial obligations. In the interests of amity I ask that this conduct may be properly rebuked by the Government of Her Majesty.

I have, etc.

The Honourable CHARLES HARDINGE,

(Sd.)

T. F. BAYARD.

dc., &c., &c.

No. 212.-1886, August 14: Report of the Canadian Minister of Marine and Fisheries.

OTTAWA, 14th August, 1886.

The undersigned has the honor to submit the following, in answer to a despatch from Lord Granville to the Governor General under date 27th July last, enclosing two notes from Mr. Secretary Bayard to the British Minister at Washington, and asking that Her Majesty's Government be furnished with a report upon the cases therein referred to.

In his first communication, dated 10th July, Mr. Bayard says:—

I have the honor to inform you that I am in receipt of a report from the Consul General of the United States at Halifax, accompanied by sworn testimony, stating that the "Novelty," a duly registered merchant steam vessel of the United States, has been denied the right to take in steam coal, or purchase ice, or tranship fish in bond to the United States, at Pictou, Nova Scotia.

It appears, that having reached that port on the 1st instant, and finding the Customs Office closed on account of a holiday, the Master of the "Novelty" telegraphed to the Minister of Marine and Fisheries at Ottawa, asking if he would be permitted to do any of the three things mentioned above; that he received in reply a telegram reciting with certain inaccurate and extended application the language of Article I of the Treaty of 1818. the limitations upon the significance of which are in pending discussion between the Government of the United States and that of Her Britannic Majesty; that on entering and clearing the "Novelty" on the following day at the Customs House, the collector stated that his instructions were contained in the telegram the Master had received, and that the privilege of coaling being denied, the " Novelty" was compelled to leave Pictou without being allowed to obtain fuel necessary for her lawful voyage on a dangerous coast.

344

Against this treatment I make instant and formal protest, as an unwarranted interpretation and application of the Treaty, by the officers of the Dominion of Canada and the Province of Nova Scotia, as an infraction of the laws of commercial and maritime intercourse, existing between the two countries, and as a violation of hospitality, and for any loss or injury resulting therefrom the Government of Her Britannic Majesty will be held liable.

With reference to this, the undersigned begs to observe that Mr. Bayard's statement appears to need modification in several important particulars. In the first place, the "Novelty" was not a vessel regularly trading between certain ports in the United States and Canada, but was a fishing vessel, whose purpose was to carry on the mackerel seining business in the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, around the coast of Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia; that she had on board a full equipment of seines and fishing apparatus and men; that she was a steam vessel and needed coal, not for purposes of cooking or warming, but to produce motive power for the vessel, and that she wished to pursue her business of fishing in the above-named waters, and to send her fares home over Canadian Territory, to the end that she might the more uninterruptedly and profitably carry on her business of fishing. That she was a fishing vessel and not a merchant vessel, is proved not only by the facts above-mentioned, but also from a telegram over the signature of H. B. Joyce, the Captain of the vessel, a copy of which is appended. In his telegram, Captain Joyce indicates the character of his vessel by using the words "American fishing steamer," and he signs himself "H. B. Joyce, Master fishing steamer, Novelty.""

[ocr errors]

There seems, no doubt therefore, that the " Novelty " was in character, and in purpose, a fishing vessel, and as such comes under the provision of the Treaty of 1818, which allows United States fishing vessels to enter Canadian ports "for the purpose of shelter and repairing damages therein, and of purchasing wood and of obtaining water, and for no other purpose whatever."

The object of the Captain was to obtain supplies for the prosecution of his fishing, and to tranship his cargoes of fish at a Canadian port, both of which are contrary to the letter and spirit of the Convention of 1818.

To Mr. Bayard's statement, that in reply to Captain Joyce's inquiry of the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, he received in reply a telegram reciting with certain inaccurate and extended application, the language of Art. I of the Treaty of 1818, the undersigned considers it a sufficient answer to adduce the telegrams themselves. 1st. Enquiry by the Captain of the "Novelty":

Hon. George E. Foster, Minister of Marine and Fisheries, Ottawa.

PICTOU, N. S., 1st July, 1886. Will the American fishing steamer now at Pictou be permitted to purchase coal or ice. or to tranship fresh fish, in bond, to the United States' markets? Please answer.

[blocks in formation]
« ZurückWeiter »