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and testimony, what is the complaint and claim of the Dominion? It is that where they have made of the fishery a common property, opened what they consider a valuable industry to the free use of both countries, they are not met in the same spirit, and other industries, to them of equal or greater value, are not opened by us with the same friendly liberality. I can find no answer to this complaint, no reply to this demand, but that furnished by the British Case, your own claim to receive a money compensation in the place of what you think we ought to have given. If a money compensation is recompense-if these unequal advantages, as you call them, can be equalized by a money payment, carefully, closely, but adequately estimated then we have bought the right to the inshore fisheries, and we can do what we will with our own. Then we owe no obligation to liberality of sentiment or community of interest; then we are bound to no moderation in the use of our privilege, and if purseseining and trawling and gurry-poison and eager competition destroy your fishing, as you say they will, we have paid the damages beforeLand; and when at the end of twelve years we count the cost, and find that we have paid exorbitantly for that which was profitless, do you think we will be ready to renew the trade, and where and how will we recover the loss?

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Extract from closing argument of Hon. Richard H. Dana, Jr., on behalf of United States.

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Now, your honors will allow me a word, and I hope you will not think it out of place it is an interesting subject; I do not think it is quite out of place, and I will not be long about it-on the nature of this right which England claimed in 1818, to exclude us from the three miles, by virtue of some supposed principle of international law. I have stated my opinion upon it; but your honors will be pleased to observe, that on that, as upon the subject of headlands, on an essential part of it, without which it can never be put in execution, there is no fixed international law. I have taken pains to study the subject; have examined it carefully since I came here, and I think I have examined most of the authorities. I do not find one who pledges himself to the three-mile line. It is always "three miles," or "the cannon-shot." Now, "the cannon-shot" is the more scientific, though not the more practical, mode of determining the question, because it was the length of the arm of the nation bordering upon the sea, and she could exercise her rights so far as the length of her arm could be extended. That was the cannon-shot, and that, at that time, was about three miles. It is now many more miles. We soon began to find out that it would not do to rest it upon the cannon-shot. It is best to have something certain. But international writers have arrived at no further stage than this, to say that it is "three miles, or the cannon-shot." When they are called upon to determine what are the rights of bordering nations, they say, "to the extent of three miles, or the cannon shot." But But upon the question, "How is the three-mile line to be determined?" we find everything

utterly afloat and undecided. My purpose in making these remarks is, in part, to show your honors what a precarious position a state holds which undertakes to set up this right of exclusion and to put it in execution. The international law makes no attempt to define what is "coast." We know well enough what a straight coast is, and what a curved coast is; but the moment they come to bays, harbors, gulfs, and seas, they are utterly afloat-as much as the sea-weed that is swimming up and down their channels. They make no attempt to define it, either by distance or by political or natural geography. They say at once, "It is difficult, where there are seas and bays. Names will not help us. The Bay of Bengal is not national property; it is not the King's chamber; nor is the Bay of Biscay, nor the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, nor the Gulf of Mexico. Names will not help us. An inlet of the sea may be called a "bay," and it may be two miles wide at its entrance; or it may be called a "bay," and it may take a month's passage in an old-fashioned sailing vessel to sail from one headland to the other. What is to be done about it? If there is to be a three-mile line from the coast, the natural result is, that that three-mile line should follow the bays. The result then would be that a bay more than six miles wide was an international bay; one six miles wide, or less, was a territorial bay. That is the natural result. Well, nations do not seem to have been contented with this. France has made a treaty with England saying that anything less than ten miles wide shall be a territorial bay.

The difficulties on that subject are inherent, and, to my mind, they are insuperable. England claimed to exclude us from fishing in the Bay of Fundy, and it was left to referees, of whom Mr. Joshua Bates was umpire, and they decided that the Bay of Fundy was not a territorial bay of Great Britain, but a part of the high seas. This decision was put partly upon its width; but the real ground was, that one of the assumed headlands belonged to the United States, and it was necessary to pass the headland in order to get to one of the towns of the United States. For these special reasons, the Bay of Fundy, whatever its width, was held to be a public and international bay.

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Then look at Bristol Channel. That question came up in the case of Queen v. Cunningham. A crime was committed by Cunningham in the Bristol Channel, more than three miles from the shore of Glamorganshire, on the north side, and more than three miles from Devonshire and Somersetshire, on the south side. Cunningham was indicted for a crime committed in Glamorganshire. The place where the vessel lay was high up in the channel, somewhere about 90 miles from its mouth, and yet not as far up as the river Severn. The question was, whether that was a part of the realm of Great Britain, so that a man could be indicted for a crime committed there. Now, there is a great deal of wisdom in the decision made in that case. The court say, substantially, that each case is a case sui generis. It depends upon its own circumstances. Englishmen and Welshmen had always inhabited both banks of the Bristol Channel. Though more than ten miles in width at its entrance, it still flowed up into the heart of Great Britain; houses, farms, towns, factories, churches, court-houses, jails-everything on its banks; and it seemed a preposterous idea, and I admit it, that in

time of war two foreign ships could sail up that Bristol Channel and fight out their battle to their own content, on the ground that they did not go within three miles of the shore. I think it would have been preposterous to say that a foreign vessel could have sailed up the center of that channel, and defied the fleets and armies of Great Britain, and all her custom-house cutters, on the ground that she was flying the American or the French flag, and the deck was a part of the soil under that flag. Well, it was a question of political geography, not of natural geography. It was a question of its own circumstances. It was decided to be a part of the realm of Great Britain. I do not know that anybody can object to the decision.

No. 165.-1877, December 13: Extract from Report Mr. Dwight Foster (Agent of the United States) to the United States Secretary of State.

During the progress of the evidence offered for Her Britannic Majesty, it became obvious that a very large, if not the greater, part of the British claim was based upon alleged advantages of a commercial character, which, whether valuable or not, were certainly not secured to the citizens of the United States by the articles of the treaty of 1871.

I therefore, on the 1st of September, made the following motion, for the purpose of excluding these pretended advantages from consideration, and thus relieving us from the necessity of swelling an already enormous volume of testimony by evidence on points clearly irrelevant to the true issue:

The counsel and Agent of the United States ask the honorable Commissioners to rule and declare that it is not competent for this Commission to award any compensation for commercial intercourse between the two countries, and that the advantages resulting from the practice of purchasing bait, ice, supplies, &c., and from being allowed to transship cargoes in British waters, do not constitute a foundation for award of compensation, and shall be wholly excluded from the consideration of this tribunal.

No. 166.-1878, February 11: Letter from Governor Sir J. Glover of Newfoundland to the Earl of Carnarvon (British Colonial Secretary).

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, February 11, 1878. MY LORD, I regret to have to report the destruction of an American seine by our fishermen in Fortune Bay on the 6th ultimo, the news of which only reached me through a cable telegram from London on the

4th instant.

2. On receipt of this intelligence I at once caused an inquiry to be instituted to ascertain the truth of the report, but the result of the inquiry has not yet reached me from Fortune Bay. I have the honour to inclose the only information I have as yet been able to obtain, viz., the deposition of the master of a vessel who was present at the time.

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3. It would appear that the Americans were guilty of three illegal acts, viz.:

1st. As regards the time in which a seine may be used.

(See Acts 1876, cap. 6, in Amendment of Consolidated Statutes, 1872, cap. 102).

2nd. In barring (same Act).

3rd. By putting out nets or seines between 12 o'clock on Saturday night and 12 o'clock on Sunday night.

(Acts 1876, cap. 6, sec. 4.)

4. As two out of the five seines were removed by our people without injury or damage, and two by the Americans themselves, I conclude that opposition was raised on the part of the American owner to the removal of the fifth.

5. I inclose the opinion of the Attorney-General, which that gentleman has placed in my hands, and I hope to be enabled to send full information by the next mail.

I have, &c.,

(Signed)

JOHN H. GLOVER.

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No. 167.-1878, March 2: Letter from Mr. Evarts (United States Secretary of State) to Sir E. Thornton (British Minister at Washington).

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
Washington, March 2, 1878.

SIR, I have the honour to bring to your notice the fact that complaints have been recently made to this Department of interference with American fishermen engaged in the herring fishery on the coast of Newfoundland. In some instances these complaints have been forwarded to the Department through the United States' Consuls at St. John's and other ports of that Colony. The representations made by the Consuls are, however, of a general nature based upon statements made to them by the fishermen immediately interested, and consequently the officers in question have been instructed to collect and forward more detailed and specific information, and such further information I will do myself the honour to transmit to you so soon as the reports from the Consuls shall have been received.

Still more recently similar complaints have been received through the collector of the port of Gloucester, Massachusetts, supported by the sworn statements of the masters of eight fishing schooners of that port, and from the statements thus forwarded it appears that in January of the present year those vessels had reached the neighbourhood of Long Harbour, and were actively engaged in the herring fishery, and that most of the seines were full of fish and ready for landing, when, in one instance, two seines belonging to the schooners "Ontario" and "New England" respectively were cut by an enraged crowd of over 200 men, and the whole catch, estimated at not less than 5,000 barrels of herring suffered to run out to sea. Other instances are given, only less in quantity and value, the proceedings resulting in the vessels-eight in number-being obliged to abandon the fishinggrounds on that coast and return to their home port in ballast. When it is remarked at what considerable expense the preparations are made for a season's fishing in these waters, many of the men-mariners, as

well as the masters, embarking their all in the enterprise, the serious character of their losses may be partially understood.

The President has deemed it proper, in view of the possible complications to which a continuance of these lawless proceedings might give rise, to bring the subject directly to the attention of Her Majesty's Government with a view to an early investigation of the facts and the adoption of such measures on its part as may be deemed advisable to prevent a recurrence of the acts complained of; and the Minister of the United States at London has been accordingly instructed to take the necessary steps in that direction. Meantime, I have deemed it right to transmit the facts, so far as they are already known, for your information.

I have, &c.

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No. 168.-1878, September 28: Letter from Mr. Evarts to Mr. Welsh (United States Minister at London).

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, September 28, 1878.

SIR, I received in due course your despatch of the 24th August ultimo, inclosing Lord Salisbury's reply of the British Government to the representations that had been made to it as early as March last by you, under instructions from the Department.

I must understand Lord Salisbury's note accompanying the copy of Captain Sulivan's Report, which he communicates to this Government, as adopting that naval officer's conclusions of fact respecting the violent injuries which our fishing fleet suffered at the hands of the Newfoundland fishing population at Fortune Bay in January of this year, as the answer which Her Majesty's Government makes to the representations laid before it on our part, verified by the sworn statements of numerous and respectable witnesses.

His Lordship has not placed in our possession the proofs or depositions which form the basis of Captain Sulivan's conclusions of facts, and I am unable, therefore, to say whether, upon their consideration, the view which this Government takes of these transactions, upon the sworn statements of our own respectable citizens, would be at all modified. In the absence of these means of correcting any mistakes or false impressions which our informants may have fallen into in their narrative of the facts, it is impossible to accept Captain Sulivan's judgment upon undisclosed evidence as possessing judicial weight.

You will, therefore, lay before Her Majesty's Government the desire which this Government feels to be able to give due weight to this opposing evidence, before insisting upon the very grave view of these injuries which, at present, its unquestionable duty to the interests which have suffered them, and its confidence in the competency and sobriety of the proofs in our possession, compels this Government to take. Should Her Majesty's Government place a copy of the evidence upon which Captain Sulivan bases his Report in your hands, you will lose no time in transmitting it for consideration. I regret that any further delay should thus intervene to prevent an immediate consideration of the facts in

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