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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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THE NEW AMERICAN " DIFFICULTY . " The difficulties involved in the controversy between the American and British Governments , respecting the fisheries of North America , are by no means limited to the immediate question at issue , but they lie behind , especially in the circumstances under which the American Government is placed . The question is immediately brought into activity by a circular from Sir J ohn Pakington , Queen Victoria ' s Secretary of State for the Colonies , addressed to the Governors of the North American colonies in the month of May last , notifying that the colonists will not be forbidden from offering bounties for the extension of the fishery , and that a small naval force of steamers will be sent to protect the British fisheries against the intrusion of foreign vessels , especially the encroachments of the fishing vessels of the United States upon those waters from which they were excluded by the terms of the convention of 1818 . In both these steps , it appears to us , Sir-John Pakington is only acting according to right and duty . Although the allowance of bounty is in itself an absurd plan of maintaining a trade , still it may be rendered necessary by a correlative absurdity in a rival ; and , at all events , it is a
subject entirely within the choice and authority of the colonies themselves . Again , so long as the treaty with the United States is unrevoked , the colonists have a right to call upon this Government for its enforcement . And there is no doubt that the treaty has been violated by the Americans . At the end of June an American fishing vessel , the Coral , belonging to Machias , in Maine , entered the Bay of Fundy , was seized by the Queen ' s cutter Nctlcy , carried into the port of St . John ' s , New Brunswick , and delivered over to the Court of Admiralty . The controversy , therefore , exists both in correspondence and in
action . The specific points upon which the dispute turns is this : —The English maintain , and the Americans admit , that American vessels arc excluded from approaching the English limit within three miles ; but the English maintain that the limit is to be reckoned , in respect of baj ' s , from the line connecting the headlands ; whereas , the Americans insist that it is to be reckoned from the whore . The American position cannot be maintained for a single instant by any logical construction of the treaty . The first article of the convention between the United States and
Great Britain , concluded on the 20 th October , 1818 , was intended to settle the very difference now in agitation , and it stipulates mutual concessions between the inhabitants of the United States and tho subjects of his Britannic Majesty . The article of the convention specifically concedes to tho United States permission to fish oil' tho Soul-born coast of . Labrador , with certain islands and straits , and to lish , and also to land for the Sui * pose of curing lish , on the southern coast of lowfoundland within specified limits , so long as that part of the coast should not bo settled ; the landing to be afterwards unlawful " without
previous agreement for such purpose , with tho inhabitants , proprietors , or possessors of Mic ground . " Ana " the United States hereby renounce for ever tiny liberty heretofore enjoyed or churned by the inhabitants thereof , to take , dry , or cure fish on or within three marine miles of any coasts , buys , creeks , or harbours of Ilia Britannic Majesty's dominions in America ^ not included within the above-mentioned limits . " II ia evident , from those terms , that tlio American proposal to reckon the three mile * from , the coaM or shore is excluded , since " coasts , bays , crooks * or harbours , " must bo taken distinctively uud not
oversight" in the convention of 1818 . As an oversight it would be a very fair subject for fresh negociation , but it cannot be over-ridden by aggressive presumption ; and , notwithstanding the general disposition in the United States to burst with indignation at the conduct of England , there is also a disposition to admit that the American title is by no means perfect . The New YorJp Herald ridicules the notion of enforcing the
synonymously ; and it is equally evident that three miles from a bay does not mean three miles from the bottom of a bay , or any part of a bay , but three miles from the whole bay , that is , from the entrance thereof . Indeed , Mr , Webster admits that such is " the strict and rigid construction" of this article , and he treats so large a concession to England as being , undoubtedly , "
American rights— " We shall have no war yet awhile concerning cod-fish or mackerel . Peace is preferable to fish . " It is not certain , however , whether American statesmen will be allowed to take their choice so easil y between peace and fish , or whether they will be able to follow without difficulty the dictates of their own intelligence . The case looks simple enough on our side , but it is complex enough in all conscience on the American side . We have but half of it before us , when we have only the letter of the convention , and the claims
of the colonial fishermen . The very reason why the colonists complain , is the reason why American officials have a difficulty in holding back . The men who make the encroachment cannot be disregarded by their own Government . As the oldest state in the Union , Massachuse t enjoys much influence . The interests invested in the fishing trade are not limited to the rough sailors who carry out the aggression , but are mainly embodied in the capitalists of Salem , and the other coast towns—persons of no small
influence in their . states . Even , the fishers have votes ; and a cod fish , it may be said , presides as a preesens divus over the State legislature ; a figure of that important fish being suspended above the council in its sittings . Cod and mackerel , therefore , go for something in the state of Massachusets—nay , beyond that state . Themistocles ruled Athens , but his wife ruled Themistocles , and their little boy ruled her : so it may be said that Massachusets influences the Union , and that Cod and Mackerel have weight with JVtassaoliusets .
Moreover , the period of the presidential election approaches , and candidates may not only find it necessary to show that they have a due regard to the long-shore men of that extensive coast , but that they do not truckle to monarchical England , when republican interests are at stake . Furthermore , the American navy draws its recruits , in great part , from tho coast in question ; and if there should bo any breach with England , tho vessels will probably bo manned by tho very men who are now making the encroachment , and who will come to avenge the rights of the
republic and their own private grudge . Some of them , too , although residents of the Union , are British born . Large sums of American money arc invested in the trade . Tho vessels engaged it it are of considerable size . Its schooners are often as big as little ships , woll fitted , and built for fleetness . Competing with each other and with foreign fishers , they naturally seek the best fields ; and there is something exasperating to tho enterprising sailor , as free as tho winds and waves around him , when he is told that he must not go too near the feeble fisher of the English colonies , because some lawyer restriction , written on the waves , is to withhold him . To him , with a shoal of fish in sight , such technicalities arc
Vexatious nonsense , and in he must go . JLho Yankee will always go a-hoad ; but when ho is ruddy with tho daily braving of the winds and waters , when his arm has grown stronger than tho current , and his voice can shout down the storm , — . and when the black-coated lawyer rises , like some pedantic marine devil , or the Neptune of tho line out of his place , and tells him that ho " cannot goon , "—the irresistible impulse must be , to boar down upon the said pedantic devil , and go slick over him . And whore tho republican goes , his Government must follow . It will not servo , our interests in . any degree to blink these dillicultios , which press upon tho officials on tho otkor side .
A case , indeed , is conceivable , in which the relation of tho two countries would bo so much altered , that no di / Iiculty would exiat in thiu
specific dispute . If the ( Gfbvernnients of the two countries understood the wants and the wishes of their respectire peoples , —if they thoroughly understood the mutual interests of two nations that ougb * to be champions of liberty in the world , —if thatmutual understandin g werefrankiy and fr eely expressed in all the relations of diplomacy , so freely that each should have sufficient grounds thoroughly to trust the honest y and good will of the other , —then no particular point of dispute could be a matter of difficulty between
two great nations . If the English , Government could persuade the American people . that the State of England is as much the friend of America as it is . the interest of the English people to be , then even the sailors of Massachusets might , without difficulty , be persuaded that it would be wise and noble on their part to make concessions for a just and generous friend . On the other hand , if the alliance of the great republic had been cultivated by the English people as it ought to have been in times past , —if England had
always maintained a noble and independent bearing throughout , on questions of the kind , then it might have been possible for England , by arrangements with her own colonists , to make some concession , even against the letter of the law , on behalf of a generous rival . We find , therefore , as the ultimat e conclusion , that the real difficulty of the case lies in the want of that thorough understanding between the two Governments of Washington and Downing-s , treet , which is on every account so essential to the welfare of the two States whose public affairs are entrusted
to those Governments . . The want suggests the remed y- If the great Republic be approached by our public servants on the footing of the reciprocal affection due to our consanguinity , our common institutions , our common interests , and our common duty to mankind , then a paltry dispute about fish would merge in the larger questions of alliance , and might safely be left to the spirit of that majestic friendship . But to treat this position , which is only one amongst the wholly new positions , of the political world throughout both its hemispheres , we need that great desideratum of the day , —a strong Minister
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WHIGGISM IN THE MAIN SEWER . How often does that which seems to us now the most grievous of misfortunes become by time a source of congratulation ! How often do we execrate an obstruction which exasperates our impatience , and afterwards bless it for preventing us from doing that which we ought not to have done , or which we should only have done with
imperfect knowledge and skill . In this profound , view , the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers , which is , with respect to its composition and professed objects , so execrable an obstruction , becomes a sort of blessing . Its authors , indeed , are not to have much credit for any angelic intent or power : they aro like the vermin which , with tho most grovelling appetites , unconsciously perform a useful service for higher species ; but the carrion crow lias its value , and the dog of Cairo is
recognised as a despised benefactor . Speajdng of it collectively , the « ommission is altogether contemptible . It cannot do what it was appointed to do , but only that which is tho unimportant incident of its existence . It was appointed , on January , 184 , , for the purpose ot " accomplishing a system of general drainage ; but it ) ios not done that ; it has scarcely broken ground , and will not bo able to accomplish anything of the sort . It was appointed , not "to de
attend to mere ordinary routine matters" or - tail ; but it Jias confined itself to local efforts . It tried to got up a plan , but could not find ono . > and at last , on the third stage of its existence , « did compile a sort of compromise between the old plans of draining and the now . It wanted a , loin for the purpose , but it could not give security-It asked Government for the needful powers , imp
could only got a promise—still unfulfilled , has been successively torn by internal dissension " , dismembered by Government , and re-com posed thrice ; but always kept in a state of uncertainty and feebleness . Incompetent to fulfil its lmssion , niistruatod by tho public , and by monoy-lendei » —mistrusted , like an ill-conditioned cluW , by 'J » own parents—defied by parishes , roviled by _ r " actionarios , reproached by progressionists , it , now analyzed by itself , and stands confessed aj tho most delusive and impotent of organize " humbugs—the paltriest twig of tho wiaeiybraiichniif organized hypocrisy .
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^ T SATURDAY , AUGUST 7 , 1852 .
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There is nothing so revolutionary , because there is nothing so unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keep things fixed when all the world is by the very law of its creation in eternal progress . —Dn . Aknold .
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f U r < t H E 1 E A t ) E it . tSitft&sIt
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 7, 1852, page 754, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1946/page/14/
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