ed States condemned the award with
much heat, and took occasion to abrogate the clause of the treaty on
the earliest date for which notice could be given, July 1, 1885. {105}
For that season the fishing privileges were extended, but with the next
year the whole dispute revived. The Canadian authorities insisted on
restricting American fishermen rigidly to the letter of treaty
privileges as Canada interpreted them. American fishing vessels were
not only barred from fishing within the three-mile limit but were
forbidden to enter a Canadian port to ship cargoes or for any other
purpose, save for shelter, wood, water, or repairs. Several American
boats were seized and condemned; and Canadian fishery cruisers
patrolled the coasts, incessantly active. A storm of genuine if not
informed indignation broke out in the United States. The action of the
Canadian authorities was denounced as unneighbourly and their
insistence on the letter of ancient treaties as pettifogging; and, with
more justice, it was declared that the Canadian Government used the
fishing privileges as a lever, or rather a club, to force the opening
of the United States markets to all Canadian products.

President Cleveland sought a friendly solution by the appointment of a
joint commission. Congress, more bellicose, passed unanimously (1887)
a Retaliatory Act, empowering the president, if satisfied that American
vessels {106} were illegally or vexatiously harassed or restricted, to
close the ports and waters of the United States against the vessels and
products of any part of British North America. The president declined
to fire this blunderbuss, and arranged for the commission on which
Joseph Chamberlain, Sir Lionel Sackville-West, and Sir Charles Tupper
were the British representatives. The draft treaty which the
commission framed failed to pass the United States Senate, but a _modus
vivendi_ was arranged permitting American vessels port privileges upon
payment of a licence fee. This, together with more considerate conduct
on both sides, eased the tension.

Once Congress had taken the drastic step of threatening complete
non-intercourse With Canada, a reaction set in, and many Americans
began to consider whether some more pacific and thoroughgoing solution
could not be found. Two were suggested, political union and commercial
union.

The political union of the two democracies of the continent has always
found advocates. In the United States man