Sivut kuvina
PDF
ePub

tempt to settle again the disputes that arose between our fishermen and the citizens of Newfoundland within recent years was the proposed Hay-Bond Treaty of 1902 which failed of ratification. Its provisions looked to the free admission of salted and dry-cured fish and green fish into our markets from Newfoundland, with the privilege to the Americans of securing free bait in Newfoundland waters. The fishing interests of New England could not see wherein they could be bettered by such a change, as, by the terms of the modus vivendi, our fishermen can now obtain bait by the payment of a license fee that in the aggregate amounts to from $120 to $200 a vessel only.

As the question now stands it is a three-sided one in which Canada, Newfoundland, and the United States are each striving to hold fast to all the privileges they now possess and, if possible, make new arrangements whereby their commercial interests will be furthered. Canada is desirous of securing the free entry of her fish because her own markets are inadequate for the annual supply of fish, and because she believes that the removal of the present duty into the United States would cheapen the cost of fish for the consumer in the United States, and thus develop a greater market for the supply that she could furnish. She also occupies an advantageous position in regard to the mackerel fishery, and has excellent train and steamboat facilities for shipping her fresh food into American markets.

Newfoundland occupies a commanding position in the fact that the supply of bait used in the deep-sea fisheries centers very largely on her coasts. She contends that the bait supply is indispensable to the United States, and that the present arrangement of license fees, which gives her only about $15,000 annually, is altogether inadequate.

This colony, too, would like to have the free

1 During the season of 1907 the American fishermen at Bay of

admission of her fish into the United States. The United States realizes the immense importance of the Newfoundland bait to her fishing interests and will do nothing that will tend to jeopardize these interests. She does not want the free admission of Canada's fish and fish products; such a step to-day would seriously cripple the New England fishing industry. The three-mile limit for catching mackerel in Canadian waters is of little importance to New England fishermen at present, so that Canada can hold out little to this country, in the fishing industry, that should tempt our government to allow the free entry of Canadian fish. The fisheries of Newfoundland are not held in so great fear by the Americans, however, because Newfoundland is more remote from our markets and the transportation facilities are not so good as Canada pos

sesses.

Why, then, do not the United States and Newfoundland enter into an agreement that might be mutually beneficial? Such a proposition was tried in the Hay-Bond arrangement, but the measure received the veto of the Imperial Cabinet. During the progress of the negotiations, Canada entered a protest against such a treaty on the grounds that Newfoundland should not be permitted to make an arrangement with the United States and barter away her inshore fisheries, because these were the joint possession of all the North American provinces of Great Britain. The importance of the interests of Canada and the insignificance of Newfoundland as a colony led to the susIslands, Newfoundland, agreed to forego temporarily their rights of fishing and become what they were in 1904, traders. By this arrangement there was no license fee charged by the Newfoundland officials and the Americans agreed to pay not less than $1.25 per barrel for herring. There were fifty-seven American vessels at that port which purchased cargoes of herring valued at $251,652. (Annual Report, Dept. of Marines and Fisheries, Newfoundland, 1907.)

pension of negotiations that would have been beneficial to Newfoundland. The whole question of these treaty rights has been submitted for settlement to the Hague Tribunal. It is earnestly hoped that a satisfactory and permanent solution of the much-vexed fisheries disputes may be effected.2

1 When, in 1908, the writer was at Bay of Islands, Newfoundland, to investigate the status of the Fisheries Question in that country he found that the most cordial feeling exists between the fishermen of Newfoundland and the United States. The Newfoundland fishermen, when asked the cause of trouble between them and the American fishermen, replied, "The trouble is not with us; it is between our Government and the American fishermen."

2 The full text of the Award of the Tribunal of Arbitration, with Dr. Drago's Dissent, may be found on pages 373 to 449.

CHAPTER XX

A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF NEW ENGLAND FISHERIES

GENERAL SURVEY OF THE LITERATURE.

The principal works that may be regarded as histories of the American fisheries are two reports made at the instance of departmental officers, which embody a history of the fisheries of the United States down to the time of their publication. These works are the "Report on the Principal Fisheries of the American Seas," prepared for the Treasury Department in 1853 by Lorenzo Sabine, and the "Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States," prepared through the co-operation of the Commissioner of Fisheries and the Superintendent of the Tenth Census, by George Brown Goode and a staff of associates in 1880. Mention may also be made of a "Report on the Cod and Whale Fisheries," by Thomas Jefferson in 1791; but this is a summary statement and by no means a history of the fisheries.

Sabine's Report on the Principal Fisheries of the American Seas is the only attempt thus far made to place the history of our fisheries within the compass of a single volume. It was written at a time when the fisheries were confined principally to the whale, the cod and the mackerel, and before industries arising from these fisheries had sprung up. Previous to the negotiations that led to the ratification of the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854, it was highly important that our Government should have data on the condition of our fisheries. The Secretary of the Treasury requested of the Collector of Boston that a report of limited

size be submitted from the Boston office. The result of the correspondence that ensued was that the Secretary authorized Mr. Lorenzo Sabine, of Framingham, to write a report somewhat more elaborate than what was at first intended.

Mr. Sabine was well qualified for such a mission. At the time of writing he was Congressman from Massachusetts, he had served three terms in the Maine legislature, had been collector of the Passamaquoddy district in Maine for several years, and had witnessed personally much of the trouble between our fishermen and the Canadian officials in the waters of eastern Maine. Furthermore, he was probably the best informed person in America on the subject of the fisheries. For twenty years he had been collecting papers and documents with the purpose of writing a comprehensive history of the fisheries of the United States. His valuable work, "The American Loyalists," appearing six years previous, had placed him in the ranks of historians of the time. So that the selection of Mr. Sabine to submit a report on the fisheries was most opportune.

An examination of the Report furnishes strong internal evidence that Mr. Sabine had already completed a portion of his history of the fisheries before he was commissioned to submit a report upon the subject. This view would be strengthened by the fact that less than ten months were used in writing the report. That part of the report that deals with the fisheries down to the Declaration of Independence-about one-half of the work-was of the least importance to the statesmen of 1854, for whose benefit the report was especially prepared. Yet in his consideration of the colonial fisheries, Mr. Sabine goes into details of time and place as no other writer or set of writers has done. That part of the report remains to-day the most valuable authority on the subject of colonial fisheries.

« EdellinenJatka »