of the treaty. In its initiation, negotiation and conclusion, I can truly say for my associates and myself, no views but those of a single-minded patriotic intent have been allowed place or expression, nor can a trace or suggestion of partisanship be justly alleged. The sole and difficult question to which the treaty relates, the fishery rights, of one nation in the jurisdictional waters of another, began with the first dawn of our recognised independent existence as a nation, and ever since has conspicuously presented itself at intervals exciting bitter controversy, and never been satisfactory or pre-eminently disposed of. Meanwhile, the surrounding circumstances have importantly changed in advance with rapid and vast growth. The treaty of 1818 remains unaffected in its terms by seventy years of such material progress and development on this continent, as we of to-day are the witnesses. Unless the treaty of 1818 shall be wholly abrogated and recurrence necessarily had to the dangerous status that John Quincy Adams so ably but unavailingly discussed with the Earl of Bathurst, in 1815, and which had resisted all efforts of negotiation and at Ghent in the year previous, it is manifest that a joint and equitable construction in consonance with their existing relations and mutual needs must be agreed upon between Great Britain and the United States, and this, I affirm, is done by the present treaty."

Again he says:

"Conciliation and mutual neighbourly concessions have together done their honourable and honest work in this treaty, paved the way for the relation of comity and mutual advantage."

Now, Sir, I ask you whether all the time, all the trouble expended in this manner is not amply compensated for by the declaration of the Secretary of State of the United States bearing this tribute and his testimony to this treaty as a fair, equitable, and just interpretation of the treaty of 1818. And what more, Sir? Let me read from the Message of the President of the United States :

"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 this February inst., and which I have now the honour 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 carried into effect. The treaty meets my approval, because I believe that it supplies a satisfactory, practical and final adjustment, upon a basis honourable 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 formal attempts to arrive at a common interpretation, satisfactory to both parties, of the first article of the treaty of October 20th, 1818, have been unsuccessful and with the lapse of time the difficulty and obscurity have only increased.

Negotiations in 1854, and again in 1871, ended in both cases in temporary reciprocal arrangement of the tariffs of Canada and Newfoundland and of the United States, and of the payment of the money award by the United States. Under which the real question in difference remained unsettled, in abeyance, and ready to present themselves anew just as 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 four purposes for which our fishermen under the treaty of 1818 were allowed to enter the bays and harbours of Canada and Newfoundland within the belt of three 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 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 fisherman from punishment in advance of trial, delays, and inconvenience and unnecessary expense.

"The hospitality secured for our vessels in all cases of actual distress, with liberty to unload and sell and tranship 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 the contention has been steadily made in the correspondence of the Department of State, and by our Minister at London, and by the American negotiators of the present treaty.

"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 a beneficial and satisfactory intercourse between the two countries will be established so as to procure perpetual peace and harmony.

"In connection with the treaty herewith submitted, I deem it is also my duty to transmit to the Senate a written offer or arrangement, in the nature of a modus vivendi, tendered on 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 extend advantages to our fishermen, pending the ratification of the treaty, but appears to have been dictated by a friendly and amicable spirit."

I ask you to contrast that language with the position we occupied a year ago in regard to the great Republic to the south of us. Let the Senate reject the treaty tomorrow, and I ask: What is the changed position of Canada? Yesterday we stood face to face with a Nonintercourse Bill, sustained by the united action of the Senate and House of Representatives, sustained by almost the whole Press, Republican and Democratic, of the United States, sustained with few exceptions by a prejudiced, irritated, and exasperated people of sixty millions lying on our borders. What, I repeat, is our position to-day? If

that treaty were rejected by the Senate to-morrow we have gained this vantage ground, that we stand in the position of having it declared by the Secretary of State of the United States and by the President of the United States that Canada has been ready to make, and that Her Majesty's Government on behalf of Canada, through her plenipotentiaries, have made an arrangement with the plenipotentiaries of the United States that is fair, just, and equitable, and that leaves that country no possible cause of complaint. What is the result? What is the result? The result will be this: that let a fisherman complain to-morrow of our interpretation of the treaty, of the enforcement of our most extreme construction of the treaty, the answer to him is this: Nobody is to blame for the inconvenience you suffer except the Senate of the United States. The President, the Executive of your country; the Democratic party from end to end of the United States declared it was a fair settlement. They represent an undoubted majority, in my judgment, of the people of the United States to-day, and I believe they will represent it to-morrow. We stand in the position that instead of being alone with the whole of the United States, President, Government, and people all against us, all denouncing us as adopting a harsh and barbarous interpretation of an old, antiquated treaty for the purpose of forcing reciprocity upon them, we occupy the vantage ground of having these men out of their own mouths declaring that nothing has been wanting on the part of the Government of Her Majesty, or on the part of the Dominion of Canada, to place this question on a fair and equitable basis such as might honourably be accepted by the United States. I hold we have accomplished that without injuring in the slightest degree the fisheries of Canada, without injuring Canadian interests to any extent whatever. We have made concessions, as I have said, but we have made them with the avowed object of placing all people, not only the fishermen, but the agriculturist, the lumberman, every man in this country, in a better relation with the

United States than he was before. What is the result? As I have said, Mr. Bayard told us, the American plenipotentiaries told us, that there was but one way of obtaining what we wished. You want greater freedom of commercial intercourse. You want relaxation in our tariff arrangements with regard to natural products in which you are so rich and abundant. There is but one way to obtain it. Let us by common concession be able to meet on common ground and remove this irritating cause of difficulty between the two countries out of the way, and you will find that the policy of this Government, the policy of the President of the House of Representatives, the policy of the great Democratic party of the United States, will at once take an onward march in the direction you propose, and accomplish steadily that which you would desire, is the only way by which it can ever be attained. Those were not empty words; those were the sober utterances of distinguished statesmen, who pointed to the avowed policy of the Government of the United States as the best evidence of the sincerity of what they say. What has happened already? Already we have action by the financial exponent of the Administration of the United States I mean Mr. Mills-the gentleman who in the United States Congress represents the Government of the day, and stands in the position most analogous in the United States to the Finance Minister in this House, the Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, who propounds the policy of the Administration in the House. How is he selected? The Democratic party sustaining the Government selects a man as Speaker of the House of Representatives, who is in accord with the policy of the Administration for the time being, and Mr. Carlisle, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, nominates the Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means and all the members of the committee, and therefore the Chairman of that committee occupies the position of representing the Government in bringing forward such Bills as