"

1. The purchase of provisions, bait, ice, seines, lines, and all other supplies and outfits;

2. Transhipment of catch, for transport by any means of conveyance;

"3. Shipping of crews.

Supplies shall not be obtained by barter, but bait may so be obtained.

"The like privileges shall be continued or given to fishing vessels of Canada and of Newfoundland on the Atlantic coasts of the United States."

I think that is a measure which will meet with the hearty approval of the House. I think that will be regarded as a fair and reasonable proposition that, if fishing vessels of the United States are allowed to make Canada a base for obtaining their supplies and furnishing all the materials necessary for the outfit of a fishing voyage, for the transhipment of their catch, and making our harbours and ports the means of carrying on their industry, the fishermen of Canada, with whom they are in that case better able to compete than they could otherwise, are entitled to have their fish entered free in the ports of the United States. While the plenipotentiaries of the United States were not able to make this an absolute provision, I do not hesitate to say that I look confidently to the period in the remote future when fish will be made free and the fishermen of the United States will be able to obtain all the advantages in our ports which are here given to them. It will be observed that we have made this much larger in its provisions than either the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854 or the Washington Treaty of 1871, inasmuch as we have made it cover many places which were not covered by either of those treaties, and not only that, but we have taken care to guard against what might be called the rather sharp practice, if such a term were admissible in regard to a neighbouring country, that, while allowing our fish to come in free, they should impose a duty upon the cans or tins or coverings in which the fish were included. More

than that, we have made this cover all the inland waters of Canada, as well as the sea coast, and have made this provision as to the entry of free fish, provided they take advantage of this clause and make Canada the base of their supplies, apply to the fish of British Columbia-that is, to the whole of Canada, the same as it does to the Atlantic coast. I think I have now dealt with the treaty in its entirety as it stands, and I have only to refer to the modus vivendi in Schedule B, which provides that, while this treaty is sub judice, before it can be ratified by the Senate of the United States, the Parliament of Canada and the Legislature of Newfoundland, during two years or, pending that ratification, until these privileges to which the American fishermen would be entitled if our fish is made free, those privileges shall be enjoyed by the American fishermen on the payment of $1.50 per ton. I need not tell you that, on the eve of the ratification of a treaty of this kind by the Senate of the United States, a collision between the fishermen of the two countries or anything which would incite bad blood or become a cause of prejudice would probably prevent the ratification of a treaty which would be otherwise ratified, and to prevent that we offered in this modus vivendi for two years the privilege to these United States fishermen of obtaining these various benefits which are provided for in the treaty by the payment of $1.50 per ton. I do not think this will be regarded as an excessive rate, and I think it will greatly conduce to good neighbourhood between the United States and Canada. This modus vivendi was accepted by the United States plenipotentiaries in the most kindly spirit. They recommended the President to submit it to the Senate for their information, and I think I may say that it carries on the face of it the approval of the Governments of both countries. Now, having referred to the various provisions of the treaty, I am happy to say that I shall have to detain the House but a few minutes longer, but I would like to draw the attention of the House to what has been accom

plished by this treaty. I have told you what position Canada stood in with regard to the United States of America before the initiation of these proceedings. I have told you that we stood face to face with an enactment which had been put on the Statute Book by a unanimous vote of Congress, ratified by the President, providing non-intercourse between the United States and Canada. I need not tell you that that Bill meant commercial war, that it meant not only the ordinary suspension of friendly feeling and intercourse between two countries, but that it involved much more than that. If that Bill had been brought into operation by the proclamation of the President of the United States, I have no hesitation in saying that we stood in the relation to that great country of commercial war, and the line is very narrow which separates a commercial war between two countries from an actual war. Speaking a year ago, I pointed out in my remarks, with a view to prevent the possibility of such an Act going into force, all the advantages that in our present position we could avail ourselves of to protect ourselves against such an unfriendly Act on the part of the United States. I then said that it would be a mad Act. I say so now. No man who knows anything of the intimate commercial relations which exist between Canada and the United States could contemplate such an Act going into operation without feeling that it would tear up from the foundation those intimate social and commercial relations which exist between these two countries, which, in friendly rivalry, are making rapid progress which has attracted the attention of the civilised world. It would produce a condition of things the end of which no man could foresee. If that Act had been adopted, we had no means of looking to any increased commercial intercourse between that great country and the Dominion of Canada. Under those circumstances, it behoved the Government of Canada to adopt any means in its power to avert such a disaster, which, great as it would have been to Canada,

would have been still greater to the United States. But it would be a very poor compensation for the injury which we would sustain, to know that we had a companion in misfortune suffering more than we suffered ourselves. We found Congress putting on the Statute Book a direction to the President that, on the first United States vessel being seized or harassed, or refused the advantages which they said they were entitled to, he, as the executive of that country, should put that Non-intercourse Act into force. That was the condition of things when I went down last Easter to see Mr. Bayard at Washington. If you compare the condition of things to-day with the condition of things that existed then, there is no man, I care not how partisan he may be, who can judicially look at the position of this question then and now without coming to the conclusion that we have emerged from midnight darkness into the light of day under the auspices of this treaty. It may be said: Suppose that the treaty is rejected by the United States Senate-a not impossible contingency -I need not tell the House that one of the advantages we enjoy under British institutions is that we are saved from the extreme and violent antagonisms of party that every fourth year the Presidential election brings about in the United States. Now any man who knows anything of the politics of the United States knows that, however good a measure is, however valuable, however much it commends itself to the judgment of every intelligent statesman in that country, it is a matter almost of honour on the part of the party in opposition to prevent the Government of the day from doing anything that would give them any credit or strengthen their hands in the country; that on the eve of a presidential election it is next to impossible to induce a Republican majority in the Senate to sanction anything a Democratic Administration has carried through, however valuable that may be. But, Sir, take the very worst contingency: suppose this treaty is rejected by the Senate-what then? Will we be relegated back to

the position we stood in a year ago? Not at all. If our efforts, by mutual conciliation, by concessions on both sides, to find a common ground, that we could present to all the parties to this treaty, as an honourable and equitable agreement that might be fairly accepted-if these efforts had failed, if, after three months' negotiations, we had broken up with embittered relations because we found that it was impracticable to get any common ground of meeting on which the Governments of the two countries could agree, there is no question that matters would have stood in a worse position than that in which they stood when we undertook these negotiations. But, Sir, that is not the position. Let the Senate of the United States to-morrow reject this treaty; I trust they will not do so; I have a hope that there is independent statesmanship enough in the great Republican party of the United States who have the power at their disposal to-day in the United States Senate to allow that sentiment of patriotism to overweigh the party advantages they might hope to obtain by preventing the present Administration from settling this vexed question-but when they remember that for seventy years these questions have been agitated which are now disposed of, they may see that if they should come into power themselves at any early date it would be an advantage to have this vexed question between the two great English-speaking nations of the world at rest, that there may be no renewal of the difficulties which have existed so long a time. But let me take the very worst contingency-that of the rejection of this treaty-and how do we stand? Why, Sir, let me read from a letter of the Secretary of State of the United States, written to the citizens of Boston, who invited him to go there to deliver a speech upon the treaty. In Mr. Bayard's letter of March 26th he says:—

"I am convinced that the welfare and true interest of our country and a just and wise treatment of the British American population on our northern frontier alike counsel the adoption