Canada under British Rule, Sir John George Bourinot [phonics reader .txt] 📗
- Author: Sir John George Bourinot
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the infinite disappointment of the politicians of the United States, who had been long accustomed to have the best in all the bargains with their neighbours. Nothing shows more clearly the measure of the local self-government at last won by Canada and the importance of her position in the empire, than the fact that the English government recognised the right of the Dominion government to name the commissioner who represented Canada on an arbitration which decided a question of such deep importance to her interests.
The clauses of the Washington treaty relating to the fisheries and to trade with Canada lasted for fourteen years, and then were repealed by the action of the United States government. In the year 1874 the Mackenzie ministry attempted, through Mr. George Brown, to negotiate a new reciprocity treaty, but met with a persistent hostility from leading men in congress. The relations between Canada and the United States again assumed a phase of great uncertainty. Canada from 1885 adhered to the letter of the convention of 1818, and allowed no fishing vessels to fish within the three miles limit, to transship cargoes of fish in her ports, or to enter them for any purpose except for shelter, wood, water, and repairs. For the infractions of the treaty several vessels were seized, and more than one of them condemned. A clamour was raised in the United States on the ground that the Canadians were wanting in that spirit of friendly intercourse which should characterise the relations of neighbouring peoples. The fact is, the Canadians were bound to adhere to their legal rights--rights which had always been maintained before 1854; which had remained in abeyance between 1854 and 1866; which naturally revived after the repeal of the reciprocity treaty of 1854; which again remained in abeyance between 1871 and 1885; and were revived when the United States themselves chose to go back to the terms of the convention of 1818.
In 1887 President Cleveland and Mr. Secretary Bayard, acting in a statesmanlike spirit, obtained the consent of England to a special commission to consider the fishery question. Sir Sackville West, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, and Sir Charles Tupper represented England; Mr. Bayard, then secretary of state, Mr. Putnam of Maine, and Mr. Angell of Michigan University, represented the United States. Sir Charles Tupper could not induce the American commissioners to consider a mutual arrangement providing for greater freedom of commercial intercourse between Canada and the United States. Eventually the commission agreed unanimously to a treaty which was essentially a compromise. Foreign fishermen were to be at liberty to go into any waters where the bay was more than ten miles wide at the mouth, but certain bays, including the Bay of Chaleurs, were expressly excepted in the interests of Canada from the operation of this provision. The United States did not attempt to acquire the right to fish on the inshore fishing-grounds of Canada--that is, within three miles of the coasts--but these fisheries were to be left for the exclusive use of the Canadian fishermen. More satisfactory arrangements were made for vessels obliged to resort to the Canadian ports in distress; and a provision was made for allowing American fishing-vessels to obtain supplies and other privileges in the harbours of the Dominion whenever congress allowed the fish of that country to enter free into the market of the United States, President Cleveland in his message, submitting the treaty to the senate, acknowledged that it "supplied a satisfactory, practical and final adjustment, upon a basis honourable and just to both parties, of the difficult and vexed questions to which it relates." The republican party, however, at that important juncture--just before a presidential election--had a majority in the senate, and the result was the failure in that body of a measure, which, although by no means too favourable to Canadian interests, was framed in a spirit of judicious statesmanship.
As a sequel of the acquisition of British Columbia, the Canadian government was called upon in 1886 to urge the interests of the Dominion in an international question that had arisen in Bering Sea. A United States cutter seized in the open sea, at a distance of more than sixty miles from the nearest land, certain Canadian schooners, fitted out in British Columbia, and lawfully engaged in the capture of seals in the North Pacific Ocean, adjacent to Vancouver Island, Queen Charlotte Islands, and Alaska--a portion of the territory of the United States acquired in 1867 from Russia. These vessels were taken into a port of Alaska, where they were subjected to forfeiture, and the masters and mates fined and imprisoned. Great Britain at once resisted the claim of the United States to the sole sovereignty of that part of Bering Sea lying beyond the westerly boundary of Alaska--a stretch of sea extending in its widest part some 600 or 700 miles beyond the mainland of Alaska, and clearly under the law of nations a part of the great sea and open to all nations. Lord Salisbury's government, from the beginning to the end of the controversy, sustained the rights of Canada as a portion of the British empire. After very protracted and troublesome negotiations it was agreed to refer the international question in dispute to a court of arbitration, in which Sir John Thompson, prime minister of Canada, was one of the British arbitrators. The arbitrators decided in favour of the British contention that the United States had no jurisdiction in Bering Sea outside of the three miles limit, and at the same time made certain regulations to restrict the wholesale slaughter of fur-bearing seals in the North Pacific Ocean. In 1897 two commissioners, appointed by the governments of the United States and Canada, awarded the sum of $463,454 as compensation to Canada for the damages sustained by the fishermen of British Columbia, while engaged in the lawful prosecution of their industry on that portion of the Bering Sea declared to be open to all nations. This sum was paid in the summer of 1898 by the United States.
In 1897 the Canadian government succeeded in obtaining the consent of the governments of Great Britain and the United States to the appointment of a joint high commission to settle various questions in dispute between Canada and the United States. Canada was represented on this commission by Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Sir Richard Cartwright, Sir Louis Davies, and Mr. John Charlton, M.P., Newfoundland by Sir James Winter; the United States by Messieurs C.W. Fairbanks, George Gray, J.W. Foster, Nelson Dingley Jr., J.A. Kasson, and T. Jefferson Coolidge. The eminent jurist, Baron Herschell, who had been lord chancellor in the last Gladstone ministry, was chosen chairman of this commission, which met in the historic city of Quebec on several occasions from the 23rd August until the 10th October, 1898, and subsequently at Washington from November until the 20th February, 1899, when it adjourned. Mr. Dingley died in January and was replaced by Mr. Payne, and Lord Herschell also unhappily succumbed to the effects of an accident soon after the close of the sittings of the commission. In an eulogy of this eminent man in the Canadian house of commons, the Canadian prime minister stated that during the sittings of the commission "he fought for Canada not only with enthusiasm, but with conviction and devotion." England happily in these modern times has felt the necessity of giving to the consideration of Canadian interests the services of her most astute and learned statesmen and diplomatists.
This commission was called upon to consider a number of international questions--the Atlantic and inland fisheries, the Alaska boundary, the alien labour law, the bonding privilege, the seal fishery in the Bering Sea, reciprocity of trade in certain products of the two countries, and other minor issues. For the reasons given in a previous part of this chapter (page 269), when referring to the commercial policy of the Laurier government, reciprocity was no longer the all-important question to be discussed, though the commissioners were desirous of making fiscal arrangements with respect to lumber, coal, and some other Canadian products for which there is an increasing demand in the markets of the United States. The long and earnest discussions of the commission on the various questions before them were, however, abruptly terminated by the impossibility of reaching a satisfactory conclusion with respect to the best means of adjusting the vexed question of the Alaska boundary, which had become of great international import in consequence of the discovery of gold in the territory of Alaska and the district of Yukon in Canada.
The dispute between Great Britain and the United States has arisen as to the interpretation to be given to the Anglo-Russian treaty of 1825, which was made forty-two years before Russia sold her territorial rights in Alaska to the United States, that sale being subject of course to the conditions of the treaty in question. Under the third article of this treaty[10]--the governing clause of the contract between England and Russia--boundary line between Canada and Alaska commences at the south end of Prince of Wales Island, thence runs north through Portland Channel to the fifty-sixth degree of north latitude, thence follows the summit of the mountains situated parallel to the coast of the continent, to one hundred and forty-one west longitude and thence to the frozen ocean. That part of the line between fifty-six north latitude and one hundred and forty-one west longitude is where the main dispute arises. Great Britain on behalf of Canada contends that, by following the summits of the mountains between these two points, the true boundary would cross Lynn Canal, about half way between the headlands and tide-water at the head of the canal, and leave both Skagway and Dyea--towns built up chiefly by United States citizens--within British territory. The contention of Great Britain always has been that the boundary should follow the general contour of the coast line and not the inlets to their head waters. On the other hand the United States contend that the whole of Lynn Canal up to the very top, to the extent of tide-water, is a part of the ocean, and that the territory of the United States goes back for ten leagues from the head of the canal and consequently includes Skagway and Dyea. In other words the United States claim that the boundary should not follow the coast line but pass around the head of this important inlet, which controls access to the interior of the gold-bearing region.
[10: The following is the article in full: "The line of demarcation between the possessions of the high contracting parties upon the coast of the continent and the islands of America to the north-west, shall be drawn in the following manner: commencing from the southernmost point of the island called Prince of Wales Island, which point lies in the parallel of fifty-four degrees forty minutes north latitude, and between the one hundred and thirty-first and the one hundred and thirty-third degree of west longitude, the said line shall ascend to the north along the channel called Portland Channel as far as the point of the continent where it strikes the fifty-sixth degree of north latitude. From this last-mentioned point the line of demarcation shall follow the summit of the mountains situated parallel to the coast as far as the point of intersection of the one hundred and forty-first degree of west longitude (of the same meridian), and finally from the said point of intersection of the one hundred and forty-first degree in its prolongation as far as the frozen ocean, shall form the limit between the Russian and British possessions, on the continent of America to the north-west"]
The Canadian commissioners first offered as a compromise to leave Dyea and Skagway in the possession of the United States if the commissioners of that country would agree that Canada should retain Pyramid Harbour, which would give to Canadians a
The clauses of the Washington treaty relating to the fisheries and to trade with Canada lasted for fourteen years, and then were repealed by the action of the United States government. In the year 1874 the Mackenzie ministry attempted, through Mr. George Brown, to negotiate a new reciprocity treaty, but met with a persistent hostility from leading men in congress. The relations between Canada and the United States again assumed a phase of great uncertainty. Canada from 1885 adhered to the letter of the convention of 1818, and allowed no fishing vessels to fish within the three miles limit, to transship cargoes of fish in her ports, or to enter them for any purpose except for shelter, wood, water, and repairs. For the infractions of the treaty several vessels were seized, and more than one of them condemned. A clamour was raised in the United States on the ground that the Canadians were wanting in that spirit of friendly intercourse which should characterise the relations of neighbouring peoples. The fact is, the Canadians were bound to adhere to their legal rights--rights which had always been maintained before 1854; which had remained in abeyance between 1854 and 1866; which naturally revived after the repeal of the reciprocity treaty of 1854; which again remained in abeyance between 1871 and 1885; and were revived when the United States themselves chose to go back to the terms of the convention of 1818.
In 1887 President Cleveland and Mr. Secretary Bayard, acting in a statesmanlike spirit, obtained the consent of England to a special commission to consider the fishery question. Sir Sackville West, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, and Sir Charles Tupper represented England; Mr. Bayard, then secretary of state, Mr. Putnam of Maine, and Mr. Angell of Michigan University, represented the United States. Sir Charles Tupper could not induce the American commissioners to consider a mutual arrangement providing for greater freedom of commercial intercourse between Canada and the United States. Eventually the commission agreed unanimously to a treaty which was essentially a compromise. Foreign fishermen were to be at liberty to go into any waters where the bay was more than ten miles wide at the mouth, but certain bays, including the Bay of Chaleurs, were expressly excepted in the interests of Canada from the operation of this provision. The United States did not attempt to acquire the right to fish on the inshore fishing-grounds of Canada--that is, within three miles of the coasts--but these fisheries were to be left for the exclusive use of the Canadian fishermen. More satisfactory arrangements were made for vessels obliged to resort to the Canadian ports in distress; and a provision was made for allowing American fishing-vessels to obtain supplies and other privileges in the harbours of the Dominion whenever congress allowed the fish of that country to enter free into the market of the United States, President Cleveland in his message, submitting the treaty to the senate, acknowledged that it "supplied a satisfactory, practical and final adjustment, upon a basis honourable and just to both parties, of the difficult and vexed questions to which it relates." The republican party, however, at that important juncture--just before a presidential election--had a majority in the senate, and the result was the failure in that body of a measure, which, although by no means too favourable to Canadian interests, was framed in a spirit of judicious statesmanship.
As a sequel of the acquisition of British Columbia, the Canadian government was called upon in 1886 to urge the interests of the Dominion in an international question that had arisen in Bering Sea. A United States cutter seized in the open sea, at a distance of more than sixty miles from the nearest land, certain Canadian schooners, fitted out in British Columbia, and lawfully engaged in the capture of seals in the North Pacific Ocean, adjacent to Vancouver Island, Queen Charlotte Islands, and Alaska--a portion of the territory of the United States acquired in 1867 from Russia. These vessels were taken into a port of Alaska, where they were subjected to forfeiture, and the masters and mates fined and imprisoned. Great Britain at once resisted the claim of the United States to the sole sovereignty of that part of Bering Sea lying beyond the westerly boundary of Alaska--a stretch of sea extending in its widest part some 600 or 700 miles beyond the mainland of Alaska, and clearly under the law of nations a part of the great sea and open to all nations. Lord Salisbury's government, from the beginning to the end of the controversy, sustained the rights of Canada as a portion of the British empire. After very protracted and troublesome negotiations it was agreed to refer the international question in dispute to a court of arbitration, in which Sir John Thompson, prime minister of Canada, was one of the British arbitrators. The arbitrators decided in favour of the British contention that the United States had no jurisdiction in Bering Sea outside of the three miles limit, and at the same time made certain regulations to restrict the wholesale slaughter of fur-bearing seals in the North Pacific Ocean. In 1897 two commissioners, appointed by the governments of the United States and Canada, awarded the sum of $463,454 as compensation to Canada for the damages sustained by the fishermen of British Columbia, while engaged in the lawful prosecution of their industry on that portion of the Bering Sea declared to be open to all nations. This sum was paid in the summer of 1898 by the United States.
In 1897 the Canadian government succeeded in obtaining the consent of the governments of Great Britain and the United States to the appointment of a joint high commission to settle various questions in dispute between Canada and the United States. Canada was represented on this commission by Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Sir Richard Cartwright, Sir Louis Davies, and Mr. John Charlton, M.P., Newfoundland by Sir James Winter; the United States by Messieurs C.W. Fairbanks, George Gray, J.W. Foster, Nelson Dingley Jr., J.A. Kasson, and T. Jefferson Coolidge. The eminent jurist, Baron Herschell, who had been lord chancellor in the last Gladstone ministry, was chosen chairman of this commission, which met in the historic city of Quebec on several occasions from the 23rd August until the 10th October, 1898, and subsequently at Washington from November until the 20th February, 1899, when it adjourned. Mr. Dingley died in January and was replaced by Mr. Payne, and Lord Herschell also unhappily succumbed to the effects of an accident soon after the close of the sittings of the commission. In an eulogy of this eminent man in the Canadian house of commons, the Canadian prime minister stated that during the sittings of the commission "he fought for Canada not only with enthusiasm, but with conviction and devotion." England happily in these modern times has felt the necessity of giving to the consideration of Canadian interests the services of her most astute and learned statesmen and diplomatists.
This commission was called upon to consider a number of international questions--the Atlantic and inland fisheries, the Alaska boundary, the alien labour law, the bonding privilege, the seal fishery in the Bering Sea, reciprocity of trade in certain products of the two countries, and other minor issues. For the reasons given in a previous part of this chapter (page 269), when referring to the commercial policy of the Laurier government, reciprocity was no longer the all-important question to be discussed, though the commissioners were desirous of making fiscal arrangements with respect to lumber, coal, and some other Canadian products for which there is an increasing demand in the markets of the United States. The long and earnest discussions of the commission on the various questions before them were, however, abruptly terminated by the impossibility of reaching a satisfactory conclusion with respect to the best means of adjusting the vexed question of the Alaska boundary, which had become of great international import in consequence of the discovery of gold in the territory of Alaska and the district of Yukon in Canada.
The dispute between Great Britain and the United States has arisen as to the interpretation to be given to the Anglo-Russian treaty of 1825, which was made forty-two years before Russia sold her territorial rights in Alaska to the United States, that sale being subject of course to the conditions of the treaty in question. Under the third article of this treaty[10]--the governing clause of the contract between England and Russia--boundary line between Canada and Alaska commences at the south end of Prince of Wales Island, thence runs north through Portland Channel to the fifty-sixth degree of north latitude, thence follows the summit of the mountains situated parallel to the coast of the continent, to one hundred and forty-one west longitude and thence to the frozen ocean. That part of the line between fifty-six north latitude and one hundred and forty-one west longitude is where the main dispute arises. Great Britain on behalf of Canada contends that, by following the summits of the mountains between these two points, the true boundary would cross Lynn Canal, about half way between the headlands and tide-water at the head of the canal, and leave both Skagway and Dyea--towns built up chiefly by United States citizens--within British territory. The contention of Great Britain always has been that the boundary should follow the general contour of the coast line and not the inlets to their head waters. On the other hand the United States contend that the whole of Lynn Canal up to the very top, to the extent of tide-water, is a part of the ocean, and that the territory of the United States goes back for ten leagues from the head of the canal and consequently includes Skagway and Dyea. In other words the United States claim that the boundary should not follow the coast line but pass around the head of this important inlet, which controls access to the interior of the gold-bearing region.
[10: The following is the article in full: "The line of demarcation between the possessions of the high contracting parties upon the coast of the continent and the islands of America to the north-west, shall be drawn in the following manner: commencing from the southernmost point of the island called Prince of Wales Island, which point lies in the parallel of fifty-four degrees forty minutes north latitude, and between the one hundred and thirty-first and the one hundred and thirty-third degree of west longitude, the said line shall ascend to the north along the channel called Portland Channel as far as the point of the continent where it strikes the fifty-sixth degree of north latitude. From this last-mentioned point the line of demarcation shall follow the summit of the mountains situated parallel to the coast as far as the point of intersection of the one hundred and forty-first degree of west longitude (of the same meridian), and finally from the said point of intersection of the one hundred and forty-first degree in its prolongation as far as the frozen ocean, shall form the limit between the Russian and British possessions, on the continent of America to the north-west"]
The Canadian commissioners first offered as a compromise to leave Dyea and Skagway in the possession of the United States if the commissioners of that country would agree that Canada should retain Pyramid Harbour, which would give to Canadians a
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