The occasion for this correspondence with the British Government arises from the great importance of reaching a complete and explicit understanding between the two Governments, as to the conformity of the award made by the commission to the terms of the Treaty of Washington by which its authority and jurisdiction are communicated and defined. If the award in respect to the fisheries had relation only to the sum of the payment involved, considerable as that is, the Government might prefer to waive any discussion which could affect no continuing and permanent interests of the two countries, and would, therefore, comprehend only such considerations as would touch the principles or elements of computation applied by the commission in arriving at a pecuniary amount, the payment of which carried no consequences. It is true, even in such case, the indisputable right of the parties to an arbitration public or private, to examine an award in respect of its covering only the very matter submitted, should not be too readily relinquished from mere repugnance to question, a result which, at least, if undisturbed, serves the good purpose of closing the controversy. If the benevolent method of arbitration between nations is to commend itself as a discreet and practical disposition of international disputes, it must be by a due maintenance of the safety and integrity of the transaction in the essential point of the award, observing the limits of the submission.

But this Government is not at liberty to treat the Fisheries Award as of this limited interest and operation in the relations of the two countries to the important, permanent, and difficult contention on the subject of the fisheries, which for sixty years has, at intervals, pressed itself upon the attention of the two Governments, and disquieted their people. The temporary arrangement of the fisheries by the Treaty of Washington is terminable, at the pleasure of either party, in less than seven years from now. The Fisheries Award, upon such termination of the treaty arrangements, will have exhausted its force as compensation for a supposed equivalent and terminated privilege. If the Government, by silent payment of the award, should seem to have recognised the principles upon which it proceeds, as they may then be assumed or asserted by Her Majesty's Government, it will at once have prejudiced its own rights, when it shall become necessary to insist upon them, and seem to have concealed or dissembled its objections to the award when Great Britain was entitled to an immediate and open avowal of them.

Upon these considerations the President and Congress have required that the sentiments of this Government respecting the Fisheries Award should be set before Her Majesty's Government, to the end that a full interchange of views, in a friendly spirit, between the two Governments, should leave no uncertainty as to the degree of concurrence or of difference in their respective estimates of this transaction.

It is greatly to be regretted that the protocols of the commission make no record of the steps by which the majority reached the conclusion which they announced as the award of the commission, and the dissenting Commissioner, on the other hand, arrived at so widely different a result. Had the record disclosed the methods of reasoning on the processes of calculation respecting either of the privileges

92909-VOL 12-13- 4

which, under the submission of the treaty, were to be measured and compared, upon which these divergent results of their deliberations were reached, the task of exposing the manner and extent in which, in the opinion of the Government, the award transcends, the submission of the treaty would be much simpler. Indeed, in the view which this Government takes of the narrow and well-defined question submitted to the commission by the treaty, and of the indisputable result of the evidence pertinent thereto, there seems little reason to doubt that if the protocols exhibited a trace even, of the elements of computation by which the two concurring Commissioners made up their judgment, they would inevitably disclose the infirmity of the actual award, and make any careful demonstration of the same superfluous.

I desire that you will first call Lord Salisbury's attention to the nature of the question submitted to the Halifax Commission as adjusted through the diplomatic conferences of the Joint High Commission, and expressed in the treaty.

In the first place, the United States, in the fishery articles of the Treaty of Washington, did not intend to, and did not, waive or curtail in the least, the construction of the fishery and appurtenant privileges accorded in the 1st article of the convention of 1818, as claimed by them and actually possessed and enjoyed by them under such claim, at and before the negotiation of the Treaty of Washington. Neither the protocols of the conferences of the Joint High Commissioners, nor the text of the Treaty negotiated by them, indicate any intention of submitting to the interpretation of the Halifax Commission the degree of privilege accorded to the United States by the convention of 1818. On the other hand, it is manifest from the instructions to Her Majesty's High Commissioners, as well as from the protocols of the conferences, that a settlement of the disputed interpretation of the Convention of 1818 was contemplated as possible only by the diplomatic deliberations of the Joint High Commission, and such conclusions thereon as they might find it in their power to embody in the Treaty of Washington. This task, however, they did not undertake, but provided only for a temporary possessory privilege that should supersede, during its continuance, any determination of such disputed interpretation. In this disposition of the

subject it would seem quite beyond the scope of the jurisdic1380 tion of the Halifax Commission to include, in any measure

of the additional privilege accorded to the United States by article 18 of the Treaty of Washington, any contribution for the enjoyment of the privileges accorded to the United States by the convention of 1818, as claimed and actually possessed by them at the time of the negotiation of the Treaty of Washington. A reference to document No. 15, filed with the Halifax Commission in support of the Case of Her Britannic Majesty's Government, and found at p. 238 of the congressional publication of the proceedings of the Halifax Commission, will substantiate this proposition.

I do not regard this point of serious importance in the exposition of the subject, except that I desire to preclude, in behalf of the United States, any implication or argument hereafter to be drawn from my passing over without criticism this possible element in the admeasurement of the award. The United States still maintains its interpretation of the privilege secured by the convention of 1818,

and protests against any implication from the magnitude of the award of the Halifax Commission, or otherwise from its proceedings under the Treaty of Washington, that the United States have sanctioned or acquiesced in, or by payment of that award would sanction or acquiesce in, any lesser measure of the privileges secured to the United States under the convention of 1818 than, as is well known to Her Majesty's Government, they have always insisted upon.

In the next place, the United States did not submit to the Halifax Commission, under the fishery articles of the Treaty of Washington, any valuation of any general economic or political advantages which grow out of access to fishing grounds for the development of a mercantile or naval marine, and which therefore, it might be argued, would be enhanced by adding the area of the inshore fisheries of the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the fields for that enterprise, from the earliest period open to and occupied by the bold and hardy seamen of this country. Still less did the United States submit to that commission a pecuniary measurement of the removal of occasions of strife between the fishermen, or misunderstanding between the Governments of the two countries, by the temporary obliteration of a restrictive line dividing the inshore from the deep-sea fisheries on portions of the coast of British North America.

Both of these subjects are considerations, governmental in their nature, suitable to be entertained, with many others, in the diplo-. matic negotiations which ended in the treaty. They are neither of them computable in money. That which relates to the maintenance of good understanding and good neighbourhood between the United States and the British North American provinces can, least of all things, be admitted as an estimable element in a pecuniary computation. The importance of such maintenance of good understanding and good neighbourhood the United States will never under-value. In this interest large fiscal concessions were made by the United States in the adjustments of the Treaty of Washington. After such concessions the superadded submission to the Halifax Commission of the question of equalising, by a pecuniary measure, those concessions with supposed equivalent concessions by Her Majesty's Government was entertained and agreed to by the United States, mainly, if not entirely, in the disposition to meet any just interest of the British North American provinces to be assured of the equality of these intended equivalents. But the maintenance of these good relations is of common interest to the two countries, and can never be made the occasion of pecuniary tribute, as if of more importance to one than to the other. No such calculation entered into the enlightened and conciliatory motives which animated and shaped the important series of negotiations which produced the Treaty of Washington. In the definition of whatever unadjusted computation was referred for pecuniary settlement to the Halifax Commission care was taken to include nothing which, suitably to the honour of both countries, was not measurable by a scale of industrial and commercial profits.

If these plain considerations shall be viewed in this light by Her Majesty's Government, it is hoped that a concurrence of opinion as to the nature of the question actually submitted to a pecuniary measure by the Halifax Commission may be easily reached.

It cannot be very material to recall Lord Salisbury's attention to the historical attitude of the two Governments towards the subject in connection as to the fisheries by any present exposition of the matter. The sources of knowledge on this subject are common to the public cognisance of the two Governments. Our diplomatic intercourse has unfolded the views of successive British and American Cabinets upon the conflicting claims of mere right on the one side. and the other, and at the same time evinced on both sides an amicable preference for practical and peaceful enjoyment of the fisheries compatibly with a common interest, rather than a sacrifice of such common interest to a purpose of insisting upon extreme right, at a loss on both sides of what was to each the advantage sought by the contention. In this disposition the two countries have inclined more and more to retire from irreconcilable disputations as to the true intent covered by the somewhat careless, and certainly incomplete, text of the convention of 1818, and to look at the true elements of profits and prosperity in the fisheries themselves, which alone, to the one side or the other, made the shares of their respective participation therein worthy of dispute. This sensible and friendly view of the matter in dispute was greatly assisted by the experience of the provincial populations of a period of common enjoyment of the fisheries without attention to any sea-line of demarcation, but with a certain distribution of industrial and economical advantages in the prosecution and the product of this common enjoyment. The form of this experience was two-fold. First, for a period of twelve years under the reciprocity arrangement of trade between the United States and those provinces; and, second, for a briefer period after the termination of the Reciprocity Treaty, under a system of licenses, which obliterated the sea-line of circumscription to our fishery fleet upon the payment of fees deemed adequate by the provincial Gov

ernments.

In this disposition and with this experience the negotiations of the Treaty of Washington were taken up, and produced the

fishery articles of that comprehensive treaty. The results of 1381 this experience and the influence of this disposition are plainly

marked in the pertinent protocol and in the text of the articles. At the outset it was apparent that neither a confirmation or rectification of the old sea-line of exclusion or the adoption of a new one had any place in the counsels or purposes of Her Majesty's Government, or in the interests or objects of Her Majesty's provincial subjects. It had become thoroughly understood that the line of the convention of 1818 had become inapplicable, and in some respects insufferable to the common interests.

The mackerel, which, always an inshore as well as a deep-sea fish, off our coasts, at the date of the convention of 1818 and for twenty years after, as an object of pursuit to our fishermen, was confined to the coast of the United States, and that fishery was substantially unknown in any commercial sense in the provincial waters. Either a change of habits in the fish or an extension of the enterprise of our fishermen had opened up the mackerel fishery of the Gulf of St. Lawrence to our pursuit. The gradual increase of the fishing coast population of the provinces had supplied the fishermen, and excited the local interests for the prosecution from the shore, as the base of its operations, of the new industry of inshore mackerel fishery.

Upon the concurrence of these circumstantial changes it was natural enough for the coast population and the public men of the provinces to conclude that the territorial authority which, under the convention of 1818, gave the provinces the monopoly of the inshore mackerel fishery, only needed to be insisted upon by a vigorous exclusion of our fishermen to be fruitful of great local prosperity. These calculations were disappointed. It was soon found that the provinces themselves were comparatively valueless as a market for mackerel, and that the quality of the fish, as respects the methods of its preparation for export, excluded it from the general foreign market which was open to the products of the cod fisheries. The near market of the United States was essential to the local prosperity of the inshore mackerel fishermen of the provinces. The political control of that market by the United States quite overreached the provincial control of the inshore fishing grounds. Fish that cannot find a market will not long be pursued for gain, and the fishingcoast population and the statesmen of the provinces alike saw that a participation in the mackerel market of the United States was the indispensable condition of prosperity to their inshore fishery. Experience confirmed the logic of this reasoning. While the Reciprocity Treaty endured, settlements throve and wealth increased. When it was withdrawn, population shrunk and wealth declined; and but for the hope of its renewal a destruction of this industry seemed imminent.

Upon the other hand, the mackerel fishermen of the United States felt that a participation in the inshore fisheries of the Gulf of St. Lawrence was no equivalent for a surrender of our mackerel market to the participation of the inshore fishermen of the provinces. They justly reasoned that this arrangement, in respect of the mackerel catch within the line, instead of placing the provincial fishing industry upon an equal footing with ours, really put us at quite a disadvantage. Ordinarily, home products have a certain measure of advantage over duty-free competing imports in freight, ocean or inland-insurance, and interest, and factorage. But here, what passes for our home product is acquired upon the very shore of our foreign competitor. Its pursuit is at the expense of an extended voyage, with costly outfit and large investment, at great risk, with long delay, measured by heavy insurance and accruing interest. Bringing it to what is called the home market involves return voyage and the attendant burdens of expense. The farmer fishermen of the provincial coasts leave the plough in the furrow and the hay-cart in the field, and take to the simple implements and open boats, with which fishing from the shore is prosecuted, when the mackerel show themselves. They cure their catch as a part of their home labour, and ship it at low rates to our market by bottoms which make a returning commercial freight. At these odds, the share of the inshore mackerel fishery of the Gulf of St. Lawrence seemed to our fishermen but a poor addition to their former extensive rights. to be purchased by so great a disadvantage in their general fishing industry, on our own coasts and in the deep sea, as well as inshore fisheries of the provincial waters.

These views, too, were confirmed by our experience during the Reciprocity arrangement, and after its close. Both periods unmistakeably marked the policy of an open market for the products of the provincial fisheries as disastrous to our fishing industry.