If by any language used in the joint resolution it was intended to
relieve section 3 of the act of 1873, embodying Article XXIX of the
treaty, from its own limitations, or to save the article itself, I am
entirely satisfied that the intention miscarried.
But statutes granting to the people of Canada the valuable privileges of
transit for their goods from our ports and over our soil, which had been
passed prior to the making of the treaty of 1871 and independently of
it, remained in force; and ever since the abrogation of the treaty, and
notwithstanding the refusal of Canada to permit our fishermen to send
their fish to their home market through her territory in bond, the
people of that Dominion have enjoyed without diminution the advantages
of our liberal and generous laws.
Without basing our complaint upon a violation of treaty obligations,
it is nevertheless true that such refusal of transit and the other
injurious acts which have been recited constitute a provoking insistence
upon rights neither mitigated by the amenities of national intercourse
nor modified by the recognition of our liberality and generous
considerations.
The history of events connected with this subject makes it manifest
that the Canadian government can, if so disposed administer its laws
and protect the interests of its people without manifestation of
unfriendliness and without the unneighborly treatment of our fishing
vessels of which we have justly complained, and whatever is done on our
part should be done in the hope that the disposition of the Canadian
government may remove the occasion of a resort to the additional
executive power now sought through legislative action.
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