A. 5

588

Now, then, with regard to the Treaty relations between His Majesty's Government and the Government of the United States of America. Before the American Revolution the inhabitants of all the British Colonies in North America possessed, as a common right, the right of fishing on all the coasts of what was then British North America, and these rights were, in the broadest sense, prescriptive and accustomed rights of property. At the end of the Revolution, and by the Treaty of IVace signed in 1883, the boundaries between the possessions of the two Powers, that is to say, the United States and Great Britain, were adjusted by Article 111. of that Treaty, which reads as follows : — " Agreed, that the people of the United States shall continue to enjoy unmolested the right to take fish of every kind on the Grand Bank, and on all the other hanks of Newfoundland; also in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and at all other places in the sea, where the inhabitants of both countries used at any time heretofore to fish, and also that the inhabitants of the United States shall have liberty to take fish of every kind on such part of the coast of Newfoundland as British fishermen shall use (but not to dry or cure the same on that island), and also on the coasts, bays, and creeks of all other of His Britannic Majesty's Dominions in America." This was a grant or recognition of a right agreed upon for a consideration, viz., thefadjustment of the boundaries and other engagements into which the United States by that Treaty entered. For our purpose, it is unnecessary to deal with the other articles of that Treaty. From 1783, until the war between Great Britain and the United States in 1812, citizens of the United States continued to enjoy the ancient rights belonging to them as subjects of Great Britain before the Revolution, and reserved to them as citizens of the United States, to the extent outlined in the article of the Treaty ot 1783, to which I have referred. Between those dates, other subjects of difference and negotiation, apart from the fisheries, arose between the two nations, which were disposed of by the Treaties of 1794 and 1802, but the fishery provisions of 1783 continued down to the period of the outbreak of war in 1812. At the close of that war a Treaty of Peace was concluded on the 24th of December, 1814, which provided : — (1) For the restoration to each party of all countries, territories, &c., taken by either party during the war, without, delay, save some questions of islands in the Bay of Passamaquoddy; (2) For disposition of prizes and prisoners of war; and (3) For questions of boundary and dominion regarding certain islands and for the settlement of the north-eastern boundary, and also for the north-western boundary, but it made no reference whatever to any question touching the fisheries referred to in the Treaty of 1783. On the 3rd of July, 1815, Great Britain entered into a Commercial Treaty with the United States, which provided for reciprocal liberty of commerce between all the territories of Great Britain in Europe and the territories of the United States but made no stipulation as regards commercial intercourse between British Dominions in North America and the United States. After the conclusion of the Treaty following the war of 1812, viz., thai of the 24th of December, 1814, there being then no treaty obligations or reciprocal laws in force between, or in either of the countries respecting

Fifteenth Day. 14 May 1907.

Newfoundland Fishery. (Sir R. Bond.)