Temporary arrangements by treaties have served to allay friction, which,
however, has revived as each treaty was terminated. The last
arrangement, under the treaty of 1871, was abrogated after due notice by
the United States on June 30, 1885, but I was enabled to obtain for our
fishermen for the remainder of that season enjoyment of the full
privileges accorded by the terminated treaty.
The joint high commission by whom the treaty had been negotiated,
although invested with plenary power to make a permanent settlement,
were content with a temporary arrangement, after the termination of
which the question was relegated to the stipulations of the treaty of
1818, as to the first article of which no construction satisfactory to
both countries has ever been agreed upon.
The progress of civilization and growth of population in the British
Provinces to which the fisheries in question are contiguous and the
expansion of commercial intercourse between them and the United States
present to-day a condition of affairs scarcely realizable at the date of
the negotiations of 1818.
New and vast interests have been brought into existence; modes of
intercourse between the respective countries have been invented and
multiplied; the methods of conducting the fisheries have been wholly
changed; and all this is necessarily entitled to candid and careful
consideration in the adjustment of the terms and conditions of
intercourse and commerce between the United States and their neighbors
along a frontier of over 3,500 miles.
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