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the British Commissioners, on referring to their Government, were instructed to say "was regarded as inadequate" by the latter. The American Commissioners then "withdrew the proposal they had previously made," and afterwards laid down other terms, which the British Commissioners "received instructions to accept," and which were included in the Treaty accordingly. It is therein provided, that the fishermen of the United States, in addition to the rights under the Convention of 1818 shall have the liberty to fish on the coasts, and in the bays, harbours, and creeks of Nova Scotia, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward's Island and the islands adjacent; and to land upon them, as well as upon the Magdalen Islands, for the purpose of drying nets and curing fish, subject to local rights of private property; British fishermen to have similar right of fishing and landing on the eastern coasts and shores of the United States, as far as the 39th parallel (instead of the 36th, as in the Reciprocity Treaty) of northern latitude. It is also provided reciprocally for the import, with certain restrictions, of fish and fish-oil free of duty. The Treaty records that, in making this arrangement, Great Britain asserts, but the United States deny, that the preponderance of advantage is in favour of the latter; and that it is to be left to a mixed commission, with a friendly power as umpire, to decide whether any, and if so, what amount of compensation the United States ought to pay for it. There can be no question that the sacrifice our colonial fishermen are called upon to make is a very serious one, not only in

respect of the actual value of the business in which the fishermen of the States are to be admitted to participate, but as to that feeling for territorial rights, which is so dear to all free peoples. It is difficult to imagine that any pecuniary payment can compensate for it.

The Reciprocity Treaty, it will be recollected, conceded the right of navigation of the River St. Lawrence, in exchange for that of Lake Michigan, in consideration of an important provision for estalishing free trade in certain articles. The inhabitants of our colonies were very anxious to have these commercial facilities renewed, as an equivalent for a valuable concession; but the United States would not listen to any negociation on the basis of the Reciprocity Treaty. As it is, the new Treaty declares the right of navigation of the St. Lawrence from the 45th parallel, and of the Yukon, the Porcupine, and the Stickno, to be free and open to both countries, and the British Government undertakes to recommend to the Government of Canada to allow the equal use of the Welland, St. Lawrence, and other canals in the dominion, while the same privilege is to be extended to British subjects on Lake Michigan, and on the St. Clair Straits Canal in the United States. The free transit in bond, to and fro, of merchandize, both in the British possessions and in the United States, is stipulated, and the provisional export duty on American timber in the River St. John, when intended for shipment from New Brunswick, is abolished.

The rights of fishing are limited to a term of ten years, subject to two years' notice. The right of

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navigation of the St. Lawrence and other rivers named, is to exist "for ever;" but the right of navigation of Lake Michigan, conceded to us, is restricted to ten years, subject to two years' notice thereafter.

Of course all these provisions were agreed upon subject to ratification by the Senate of the United States, and by the Government of Great Britain, as well as by the Canadian Parliament, and the Legislature of Prince Edward's Island.

The inconveniencies and anomalies attending a policy of concession, in derogation of the established principles of national right, are strikingly illustrated in all the recent proceedings in reference to, and consequent upon these arrangements-the hardship of the case being aggravated by the fact, too evidently manifest, that in these transactions the interests of the colonies have been sacrificed to those of the mother country. The recently published correspondence between the Colonial Office and the Ministers of the Canadian Dominion establishes the fact of the unqualified disapproval, and deep discontent of the bulk of the Canadian population at the manner in which their wrongs have been disregarded, and their territorial rights invaded, by consent of the Home Government, with the one purpose in view, by the latter, of obtaining a settlement, of some kind or other, of long-standing and embarrassing disputes with the United States. The complaints of the Canadians are under two heads:-1st. In "that the United States are permitted to refuse to make any sort of compensation for the Fenian raids, justly chargeable to their culpable neglect of international duties, or even

to give any assurance of an intention to prevent a repetition of such outrages in future." And secondly, "The barter of the rights of fishing on their own. waters, for a period of ten years, in consideration of a possible money payment to be afterwards estimated, in diametrical opposition to their oft expressed desire."

The opposition on these two grounds was so formidable, that, as the correspondence informs us, the Canadian Ministers thought it hopeless to submit the Treaty for the ratification of the Canadian Parliament, unless something was offered in the way of composition, or equivalent for the sacrifices to be made. And this brings us to, perhaps, the most humiliating feature in the whole of this wretched business. The Canadian people were to be bribed to surrender their rights; and the bribe offered them turns out to be in the shape of a guarrantee of a loan of £2,500,000 towards the cost of constructing a railway to the Pacific, and enlarging the St. Lawrence canals, towards which the American Commissioners refused to contribute. We say that this bribe has been offered by the Home Government, and that it has been accepted in principle by our colonial brethren. But there are certain conditions of uncertainty still attaching to the bargain, of a sort inseparable from all irregular transactions, in which the executive pretends to exceed its legitimate functions; or, at any rate, to anticipate and pre-suppose the future sanction of Parliament, to arrangements upon which it has not been consulted, but which cannot be carried out

without its consent. It is demanded that Canada shall make the first move, by accepting the Treaty; which done, the Home Government undertake to recommend Parliament to give them the necessary authority to carry out the contemplated guarantee. But suppose the House of Commons should hesitate, as they did in the case of the Turkish loan in 1855, to pass the necessary vote? We should, of course, hear from perplexed Ministers the usual appeals on the ground of national faith, and so forth; and eventually, in all probability, though with reluctance, the House would find itself compelled to grant a discreditable bribe, as the price of securing an ignoble and mischievous Treaty.

By the latest accounts from Canada, it appears that, after a persuasive speech from Sir John Macdonald, the Attorney General, and one of the Joint High Commissioners, in which he urged the humiliating suggestion that the Canadian colonies were the cause of great anxiety and weakness to the mother country, and that some concession should be made to lighten the burthen, the Bill was passed for giving effect to the Treaty of Washington, so far as the Dominion is concerned, on the 17th May. Should the Treaty fail in other points, however, this legislative action will, we presume, prove of none effect.

THE NORTH-WESTERN BOUNDARY QUESTION. THE question of fixing the water line, forming part of the North-Western Boundary between the United States and the British Colonies, although it has been almost overlooked in the midst of more ex

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