History of the United States, Volume 4

by Elisha Benjamin Andrews

Complaints early reached Washington that the headland theory was being applied by the provincial customs officials to exclude our vessels from legitimate fishing places; but the Canadian Government denied that any such thing had been done by its authority, and evidently did not incline to push its old contention on this point. While the fishing schooner Marion Grimes, of Gloucester, Mass., was under detention at Shelburne, Nova Scotia, for an infraction of the customs rules, her captain having hoisted the United States flag, this was pulled down by order of the Canadian officer in temporary charge of her. The flag was again hoisted and again forcibly lowered. This act awakened great resentment in the United States, until it, too, was disavowed by the Governor-General in Council. The Sarah H. Prior lost at sea a valuable net, which a Canadian schooner picked up and wished to return. This was forbidden, and being permitted to purchase no other seine, the ship came home with a broken voyage and in debt. Captain Tupper, of the Jeannie Seaverns, having entered the harbor of Liverpool, Nova Scotia, for shelter, was denied permission to go and see his relatives near by or to receive them aboard his vessel. The water-tank of the schooner Mollie Adams having burst, her captain sought to buy two or three barrels to hold water for his crew on their homeward voyage of five hundred miles. His request was refused.

The same Mollie Adams found a Nova Scotia vessel in distress and rescued her crew. Captain Jacobs, of the Mollie, cared for the men several days, and finally, as no assistance of any sort was proffered by the Canadians, sent them home at his own expense. His aid to them delayed his homeward journey, and he was also caught in a harbor from which his vessel could pass only during very high water, which caused further delay. Owing to these incidents his supply of provisions ran low, yet he was denied permission to purchase anything, and as a result his homeward tour was made on half rations or less. Many other aggravating circumstances were connected with this case.

In quite a number of instances American masters were refused water, the only excuse being that they had not conformed to all the port or customs regulations. There can be no doubt that many fishing captains were quite too lax in this, presuming on the power of their nation and remembering the liberties enjoyed under reciprocity, while too forgetful of the stern letter of the treaty which the Canadians were executing against them. It was plain on the other hand that however wrongly Canadian subalterns may at times have acted, both the Canadian and the British Government intended to keep within the letter of the law, while forcing us to fish off their coasts at as great a disadvantage as possible.

The real source of the difficulty was well characterized by Mr. Phelps, our Minister to England. “It is to be found in the irritation that has taken place among a portion of the Canadian people on account of the termination by the United States Government of the treaty of Washington on the 1st of July, 1885, whereby fish imported from Canada into the United States, which so long as that treaty remained in force was admitted free, is now liable to the import duty provided by the general revenue laws; and the opinion appears to have gained ground in Canada that the United States may be driven, by harassing and annoying their fishermen, into the adoption of a new treaty, by which Canadian fish shall be admitted free.”

In their efforts to carry out such a policy the treaty gave the Canadians a very great advantage. As Mr. Secretary Bayard insisted, it certainly trangressed usual international comity when our ships were refused needed pilots, or our hungry crews were forbidden to purchase food in Canadian ports; but our President and Senate had, in 1818, agreed that such cruelty should be legal. To ask for comity in the matter was to ask for the voidance of the treaty. As little could we, agreeably to the treaty, presume, by use of home permits to “touch and trade,” to turn a fishing vessel at will into a merchant vessel, as was often tried in order to evade the offensive restrictions, or demand the liberty of freighting fish home overland in bond. It would equally have amounted to a quashing of the treaty, had the British and Canadians interpreted it by the easy canon of Mr. Phelps: “The question is not what is the technical effect of the words, but what is the construction most consonant to the dignity, the just interests, and the friendly relations of the sovereign powers.”

Interesting but also untenable was our Government’s plea for freedom to purchase bait for deep-sea fishing. Of old, mackerel had been caught almost solely with hooks, by the “chumming” process. In 1850 the purse seine was introduced. Soon after 1870 its use became general, and entirely revolutionized the business of taking mackerel. Huge quantities of the fish could now be captured far out in the open sea, making fishing much more profitable near home, and greatly lessening the value to us of Canada’s fishing-grounds. From these premises Mr. Bayard argued that the true intent of the 1818 agreement, which was to protect inshore fishing territory, would not be violated should we be allowed to buy bait in Canada. It was replied that the old treaty was meant to prevent our fishermen from making Canadian harbors in any way a base of operations.

“It was framed with the object of affording a complete and exclusive definition of the rights and liberties which the fishermen of the United States were thenceforward to enjoy in following their vocation, so far as those rights could be affected by facilities for access to the shores or waters of the British Provinces, or for intercourse with their people. It is therefore no undue expansion of the scope of that convention to interpret strictly those of its provisions by which such access is denied, except to vessels requiring it for the purposes specifically described. Such an undue expansion would, upon the other hand, certainly take place if, under cover of its provisions, or of any agreements relating to general commercial intercourse which may have since been made, permission were accorded to United States fishermen to resort habitually to the harbors of the Dominion, not for the sake of seeking safety for their vessels or of avoiding risk to human life, but in order to use those harbors as a general base of operations from which to prosecute and organize with greater advantage to themselves the industry in which they are engaged.

“Mr. Bayard suggests that the possession by a fishing vessel of a permit to ‘touch and trade,’ should give her a right to enter Canadian ports for other than the purposes named in the treaty, or, in other words, should give her perfect immunity from its provisions. This would amount to a practical repeal of the treaty, because it would enable a United States collector of customs, by issuing a license, originally only intended for purposes of domestic customs regulation, to give exemption from the treaty to every United States fishing vessel. The observation that similar vessels under the British flag have the right to enter the ports of the United States for the purchase of supplies loses its force when it is remembered that the convention of 1818 contained no restriction on British vessels, and no renunciation of any privileges in regard to them.”

For some weeks in the spring and summer of 1886, the fishery dispute greatly excited our country. Even threats of war with Canada were uttered in case its government should not recede from its aggravating position, and careful estimates made of the force we could throw across our northern border in three days. In May, 1886, Congress placed in the President’s hands power to suspend commercial intercourse between the two countries. Later in the year a bill was introduced in the House cutting off all commercial relations with Canada by land or water. The Senate advanced a more moderate proposition, to limit the proposed arrest of traffic to water commerce and to Canadian vessels, also to leave its enforcement optional with the President. This became law on March 3, 1887. Under this legislation the President, on being assured that fishing masters or crews were treated in Canadian ports any less favorably than masters or crews of trading vessels from the most favored nations, could, “in his discretion, by proclamation to that effect, deny vessels, their masters and crews, of the British dominions of North America, any entrance into the waters, ports, or places of or within the United States.”

The President, however, did not think best at once to use this fearful power, likely enough to lead to war. He preferred to make another attempt at a peaceful settlement, through a new treaty. This had constantly been the wish of the British Government. Accordingly, later in the year 1887, a joint commission, consisting of Secretary Bayard, President Angell, of Michigan University, Hon. William L. Putnam, of Maine, on the part of the United States, and of Rt. Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, Sir Charles Tupper, of Canada, and Sir Lionel West, the British minister, on the part of Great Britain, met at Washington. The commission toiled nearly all winter, and passed to the President the result of its deliberations on February 16, 1888.