EXECUTIVE MANSION, _February 20, 1888_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
In my annual message transmitted to the Congress in December, 1886, it
was stated that negotiations were then pending for the settlement of the
questions growing out of the rights claimed by American fishermen in
British North American waters.
As a result of such negotiations a treaty has been agreed upon between
Her Britannic Majesty and the United States, concluded and signed in
this capital, under my direction and authority, on the 15th of February
instant, and which I now have the honor to submit to the Senate with the
recommendation that it shall receive the consent of that body, as
provided in the Constitution, in order that the ratifications thereof
may be duly exchanged and the treaty be carried into effect.
Shortly after Congress had adjourned in March last, and in continuation
of my efforts to arrive at such an agreement between the Governments of
Great Britain and the United States as would secure to the citizens of
the respective countries the unmolested enjoyment of their just rights
under existing treaties and international comity in the territorial
waters of Canada and of Newfoundland, I availed myself of opportune
occurrences indicative of a desire to make without delay an amicable and
final settlement of a long-standing controversy, productive of much
irritation and misunderstanding between the two nations, to send through
our minister in London proposals that a conference should take place on
the subject at this capital.
The experience of the past two years had demonstrated the dilatory and
unsatisfactory consequences of our indirect transaction of business
through the foreign office in London, in which the views and wishes of
the government of the Dominion of Canada were practically predominant,
but were only to find expression at second hand.
To obviate this inconvenience and obstruction to prompt and well-defined
settlement, it was considered advisable that the negotiations should be
conducted in this city and that the interests of Canada and Newfoundland
should be directly represented therein.
The terms of reference having been duly agreed upon between the two
Governments and the conference arranged to be held here, by virtue of
the power in me vested by the Constitution I duly authorized Thomas F.
Bayard, the Secretary of State of the United States, William L. Putnam,
a citizen of the State of Maine, and James B. Angell, a citizen of the
State of Michigan, for and in the name of the United States, to meet and
confer with the plenipotentiaries representing the Government of Her
Britannic Majesty, for the purpose of considering and adjusting in a
friendly spirit all or any questions relating to rights of fishery in
the seas adjacent to British North America and Newfoundland which were
in dispute between the Government of the United States and that of Her
Britannic Majesty, and jointly and severally to conclude and sign any
treaty or treaties touching the premises; and I herewith transmit for
your information full copies of the power so given by me.
In execution of the powers so conveyed the said Thomas F. Bayard,
William L. Putnam, and James B. Angell, in the month of November last,
met in this city the plenipotentiaries of Her Britannic Majesty and
proceeded in the negotiation of a treaty as above authorized. After many
conferences and protracted efforts an agreement has at length been
arrived at, which is embodied in the treaty which I now lay before you.
The treaty meets my approval, because I believe that it supplies a
satisfactory, practical, and final adjustment, upon a basis honorable
and just to both parties, of the difficult and vexed question to which
it relates.
A review of the history of this question will show that all former
attempts to arrive at a common interpretation, satisfactory to both
parties, of the first article of the treaty of October 20, 1818, have
been unsuccessful, and with the lapse of time the difficulty and
obscurity have only increased.
The negotiations in 1854 and again in 1871 ended in both cases in
temporary reciprocal arrangements of the tariffs of Canada and
Newfoundland and of the United States, and the payment of a money award
by the United States, under which the real questions in difference
remained unsettled, in abeyance, and ready to present themselves anew
just so soon as the conventional arrangements were abrogated.
The situation, therefore, remained unimproved by the results of the
treaty of 1871, and a grave condition of affairs, presenting almost
identically the same features and causes of complaint by the United
States against Canadian action and British default in its correction,
confronted us in May, 1886, and has continued until the present time.
The greater part of the correspondence which has taken place between the
two Governments has heretofore been communicated to Congress, and at as
early a day as possible I shall transmit the remaining portion to this
date, accompanying it with the joint protocols of the conferences which
resulted in the conclusion of the treaty now submitted to you.
You will thus be fully possessed of the record and history of the case
since the termination on June 30, 1885, of the fishery articles of the
treaty of Washington of 1871, whereby we were relegated to the
provisions of the treaty of October 20, 1818.
As the documents and papers referred to will supply full information of
the positions taken under my Administration by the representatives of
the United States, as well as those occupied by the representatives of
the Government of Great Britain, it is not considered necessary or
expedient to repeat them in this message. But I believe the treaty will
be found to contain a just, honorable, and therefore satisfactory
solution of the difficulties which have clouded our relations with our
neighbors on our northern border.
Especially satisfactory do I believe the proposed arrangement will be
found by those of our citizens who are engaged in the open-sea fisheries
adjacent to the Canadian coast, and resorting to those ports and harbors
under treaty provisions and rules of international law.
The proposed delimitation of the lines of the exclusive fisheries from
the common fisheries will give certainty and security as to the area
of their legitimate field. The headland theory of imaginary lines is
abandoned by Great Britain, and the specification in the treaty of
certain named bays especially provided for gives satisfaction to the
inhabitants of the shores, without subtracting materially from the value
or convenience of the fishery rights of Americans.
The uninterrupted navigation of the Strait of Canso is expressly and for
the first time affirmed, and the four purposes for which our fishermen
under the treaty of 1818 were allowed to enter the bays and harbors of
Canada and Newfoundland within the belt of 3 marine miles are placed
under a fair and liberal construction, and their enjoyment secured
without such conditions and restrictions as in the past have embarrassed
and obstructed them so seriously.
The enforcement of penalties for unlawfully fishing or preparing to fish
within the inshore and exclusive waters of Canada and Newfoundland is to
be accomplished under safeguards against oppressive or arbitrary action,
thus protecting the defendant fishermen from punishment in advance of
trial, delays, and inconvenience and unnecessary expense.
The history of events in the last two years shows that no feature of
Canadian administration was more harassing and injurious than the
compulsion upon our fishing vessels to make formal entry and clearance
on every occasion of temporarily seeking shelter in Canadian ports and
harbors.
Such inconvenience is provided against in the proposed treaty, and this
most frequent and just cause of complaint is removed.
The articles permitting our fishermen to obtain provisions and the
ordinary supplies of trading vessels on their homeward voyages, and
under which they are accorded the further and even more important
privilege on all occasions of purchasing such casual or needful
provisions and supplies as are ordinarily granted to trading vessels,
are of great importance and value.
The licenses, which are to be granted without charge and on application,
in order to enable our fishermen to enjoy these privileges, are
reasonable and proper checks in the hands of the local authorities to
identify the recipients and prevent abuse, and can form no impediment to
those who intend to use them fairly.
The hospitality secured for our vessels in all cases of actual distress,
with liberty to unload and sell and transship their cargoes, is full and
liberal.
These provisions will secure the substantial enjoyment of the treaty
rights for our fishermen under the treaty of 1818, for which contention
has been steadily made in the correspondence of the Department of State
and our minister at London and by the American negotiators of the
present treaty.
The right of our fishermen under the treaty of 1818 did not extend to
the procurement of distinctive fishery supplies in Canadian ports and
harbors, and one item supposed to be essential--to wit, bait--was
plainly denied them by the explicit and definite words of the treaty of
1818, emphasized by the course of the negotiation and express decisions
which preceded the conclusion of that treaty.
The treaty now submitted contains no provision affecting tariff duties,
and, independently of the position assumed upon the part of the United
States that no alteration in our tariff or other domestic legislation
could be made as the price or consideration of obtaining the rights of
our citizens secured by treaty, it was considered more expedient to
allow any change in the revenue laws of the United States to be made by
the ordinary exercise of legislative will and in the promotion of the
public interests. Therefore the addition to the free list of fish, fish
oil, whale and seal oil, etc., recited in the last article of the
treaty, is wholly left to the action of Congress; and in connection
therewith the Canadian and Newfoundland right to regulate sales of bait
and other fishing supplies within their own jurisdiction is recognized,
and the right of our fishermen to freely purchase these things is made
contingent by this treaty upon the action of Congress in the
modification of our tariff laws.
Our social and commercial intercourse with those populations who have
been placed upon our borders and made forever our neighbors is made
apparent by a list of United States common carriers, marine and inland,
connecting their lines with Canada, which was returned by the Secretary
of the Treasury to the Senate on the 7th day of February, 1888, in
answer to a resolution of that body; and this is instructive as to the
great volume of mutually profitable interchanges which has come into
existence during the last half century.
This intercourse is still but partially developed, and if the amicable
enterprise and wholesome rivalry between the two populations be not
obstructed the promise of the future is full of the fruits of an
unbounded prosperity on both sides of the border.
The treaty now submitted to you has been framed in a spirit of liberal
equity and reciprocal benefits, in the conviction that mutual advantage
and convenience are the only permanent foundation of peace and
friendship between States, and that with the adoption of the agreement
now placed before the Senate a beneficial and satisfactory intercourse
between the two countries will be established so as to secure perpetual
peace and harmony.
In connection with the treaty herewith submitted I deem it also my duty
to transmit to the Senate a written offer or arrangement, in the nature
of a _modus vivendi_, tendered after the conclusion of the treaty
on the part of the British plenipotentiaries, to secure kindly and
peaceful relations during the period that may be required for the
consideration of the treaty by the respective Governments and for the
enactment of the necessary legislation to carry its provisions into
effect if approved.
This paper, freely and on their own motion signed by the British
conferees, not only extends advantages to our fishermen pending the
ratification of the treaty, but appears to have been dictated by a
friendly and amicable spirit.
I am given to understand that the other Governments concerned in this
treaty will within a few days, in accordance with their methods of
conducting public business, submit said treaty to their respective
legislatures, when it will be at once published to the world. In view of
such action it appears to be advisable that by publication here early
and full knowledge of all that has been done in the premises should be
afforded to our people.
It would also seem to be useful to inform the popular mind concerning
the history of the long-continued disputes growing out of the subject
embraced in the treaty and to satisfy the public interests touching the
same, as well as to acquaint our people with the present status of the
questions involved, and to give them the exact terms of the proposed
adjustment, in place of the exaggerated and imaginative statements which
will otherwise reach them.
I therefore beg leave respectfully to suggest that said treaty and all
such correspondence, messages, and documents relating to the same as may
be deemed important to accomplish those purposes be at once made public
by the order of your honorable body.