as meant to
prevent our fishermen from making Canadian harbors in any way a base of
operations.

"It was framed with the object of affording a complete and exclusive
definition of the rights and liberties which the fishermen of the United
States were thenceforward to enjoy in following their vocation, so far
as those rights could be affected by facilities for access to the shores
or waters of the British Provinces, or for intercourse with their
people. It is therefore no undue expansion of the scope of that
convention to interpret strictly those of its provisions by which such
access is denied, except to vessels requiring it for the purposes
specifically described. Such an undue expansion would, upon the other
hand, certainly take place if, under cover of its provisions, or of any
agreements relating to general commercial intercourse which may have
since been made, permission were accorded to United States fishermen to
resort habitually to the harbors of the Dominion, not for the sake of
seeking safety for their vessels or of avoiding risk to human life, but
in order to use those harbors as a general base of operations from which
to prosecute and organize with greater advantage to themselves the
industry in which they are engaged.

"Mr. Bayard suggests that the possession by a fishing vessel of a permit
to 'touch and trade,' should give her a right to enter Canadian ports
for other than the purposes named in the treaty, or, in other words,
should give her perfect immunity from its provisions. This would amount
to a practical repeal of the treaty, because it would enable a United
States collector of customs, by issuing a license, originally only
intended for purposes of domestic customs regulation, to give exemption
from the treaty to every United States fishing vessel. The observation
that similar vessels under the British flag have the right to enter the
ports of the United States for the purchase of supplies loses its force
when it is remembered that the convention of 1818 contained no
restriction on British vessels, and no renunciation of any privileges in
regard to them."

[1887]

For some weeks in the spring and summer of 1886, the fishery dispute
greatly excited our country. Even threats of war with Canada were
uttered in case its government should not recede from its aggravating
position, and careful estimates made of the force we could throw across
our northern border in three days. In May, 1886, Congress p