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Les diagrammes suivants illustrcnt la mithcde. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 ■■■HII n. • 1 -*^- f— f*-- BE PORT trrtui ftttt TREATY OF REGrPROCITr TO RmpLUTE THE FISHERIES^ ^ Am THE TB4DF BETWBSN THE UNITED STATES A9ti\tl^ BRITISH FBOriNCES OF NORTH AMERICA; * • I llnpatct at tbt Hcqueit ot tfx Vtrajmti 9i9«rt«i iMiHiMiii^yablfiiyii 7 4 "^ / •-. .-^ •,'i' • , ^Ve.rt' !.«<% J,4^'"' ti-P \v > "5 %- « A PfiELIMINARY REPOET OH TBB TREATY OF RECIPROCITT WITB GREAT BRITAIN, 10 BE6ULATE THE TRADE BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND THE PROVINCES OF BRITISH NORTH AMERICA. PUTAmiD BT E. H. DERBY, AT TBI BBQCUT OF THE SECBETABY OF THE TBEA8URY OF THE UNITED STATB8.' WASHINGTON, D. C: TREASURY DEPARTMENT. 1806. ff • /-53/^ 1 1 vV ^s^toa CONTENTS. < tA(B. Early Colonial Po)i<7 of 6n«t Britain 6 Seclusion of Colonies, • . . . . 6 The Free Trade Policy of Great Britain, .;...... 8 Protection withdrawn from the Colonies, . 6 The Lever to open our Home Marketo, . . . 7 Sketch of the Growth of the Fisheries, 7 Services of Fishermen in Four Wars, 7 TreaQr of 1783. Provision as to Fisheries, . ... . . . . . 8 Progress of Fisheries to 1804. Ezportb, ........ 8 Provision of Treaty of Ghent, 8 Opinion of John Adams as to Fisheries, 8 Convention of 1818. Three mile line . 8 Construction of Treaties 8 Annexation of Cape Breton to Nova Scotia, . . " 10 Claims to exciusire nse of Bays of Fnndy and Cholenrs and Strait of Canso, . 10 The British Flotillas, 10 Bedprocity Treaty 11 CesMtion of Trespasses and Complainto, 11 Ezporto and Importe of the Provinces, 14 Change in the Balance cf Trade, 10 Exporto and Importa of Great Britain, 10 Defecta of the Treaty, 18 Admission of Salt, Tools and Implementa, 18 Terms for new Treaty, SO Ghrowth of Commerce with the Provinces, 81 Population and Bavenne of the Provinces, 81 Canada; her Revenue and Commerce 28 Canadian Policy and Plans, .. . . . . . >.• . . 84 Inducementa to the Treaty, 85 Report of Congressional Committee on Commerce, 86 Rise of Canadian Duties, 86 Free Porta, 87 Canadian Ministry, «. 88 Canadian Measures, 88 Importations by St. Lawrence, 89 Coasting Trade, * . . . 80 Beneflta of Treaty, 80 Maritime Provinces. Exports and Importa. Tonnage, 88 Nova Scotia I Commerce, Mines, and Shipping, 83 New Brunswick: " <• " 86 Prince Edwards Island t <• •• • •* .86 Newfoundland and Fisheries, 86 Vancouver's Island and British Columbia! Commerce, Mines and Shipping, . 87 ■ **i-. ^ CONTENTS. British Provindal Fisheries, .... French Fisheries, Ftench Boanties, U. S. Fisheries, Oppressive Duties. Partial Remission, . Tonnage, vessels, and men, employed, . Claims of the Fisheries, ... . . Is a Treafy desirable? The period fltvorable for Negotiation, . Conciliation onr Tme Policy, .... Navigation of the St. Lawrence and Ship Canals, Deepening of Lake St Clair, .... Canal around magara Falls, and to the Hudson, Duties on Products of the Provinces, Impolicy of Duty on Animals, Wool, Oats and Flour, Possibility of liglit Duties on Lumber, Fish, Coal and Barley, Fishing Vessels not to b« confiscated, Begistry of Ships, . Commisrioners, Three great Rights of the Union, British Treaties, . Cession of Territory, Provisiona for a new Tr«aty, .. IMsconthiaanee of Free Ports, Dlaooungenunt of Illicit Trade, Assimilation of Duties, . Enlargement of Free Ust, e^edflc Duties, Patents and Copy-rights, Discriminations to be aboliriied. Protection of Fisheries, . Result of Conforences, . Fftlongation of IVeaty, . Tabniar Statements, Canghnawaga Canal, Smuggling on the Erontier, Extract from Speech of J. Johnston, Esq. Extract ftom Speech of Hon. Joseph Howe, of Nova Scotia, " " Extract from Speech of Geoige H. Perry, of OtUwa, C.E., •' •' Extract ftom the Speech of Duncan Stuart, Esq., at Detroit, heOa of Hmsts. Dean and Iaw, of Prince Edwards Island, as to Fisheries, ,, of MUwaukie, at Detroit, in 1865, ■ / ■ PAOI. 41 42, 44, 46 42,44,46 46 47 47 47 47 48 48 61 82 55 57 59 61 62 32 64 66 66 «6 65 66,69 66,69' 66,69 66,69 67 68 71 W U n 82 84 88 88 Vi, REPORT. To the Hon. Hugh M'Ciillooh, Secretary of the Treasury V ( In conformity to your wishes I have devoted much time to the Reciprocity Treaty, and respectfully submit the results. The subject is one which has important relations both to the foreign policy of the country and to the Fisheries, Commerce, Customs, and Internal Revenue, confided to your care, and the termination or renewal of the Treaty must affect the report of the Commissioners appointed imder the recent Act of Congress, to revise the revemie system. It is therefore important to determine if there is an exigency for a new treaty ; and if there is, what modifications are required to adapt it to the present state of our finances, and what changes are necessary to supply any defects disclosed by the light of our experience for the ten years of its continuance. A Treaty under which our commerce with the Provinces has increased thrieefold, or from $17,000,000 in 1852, to $68,000,000 in 1864, is not to be abandoned, or the amity which now exists between con- tiguous nations of the same origin to be endangered, without careful investigation and conclusive reasons. For half a century, from 1776 down to 1830, it was the policy of the mother country to restrain the United States from a free commerce with the Provinces, although often urged by ns to free the Provincial trade from its restraints. At tLnes the trade with the Provinces was entirely interdicted ; at others, gypsum and grindstones could be obtained upon the frontier at Eastport and Lubec only by an evasion of the law. In 1880 under the McLean arrangement, trade was resumed under heavy duties and restraints. Down to this period we knew Quebec a? the chief fortress, and Halifax as the chief naval station of the British Empire upon our side of the ocean, 6 COLONIAL TBADE. / rather than as marts of commerce, and there was little fellowship between us and the Provincials, many of whom were descended from the Loyalists who followed the British troops from our shores. Asperity of feeling gradually wore away after the resuinption of trade. , And in 1844, Great Britain, having acquired an ascendancy in the arts and in capital, and set in motion her steam-power, which Mr. Howe, of Nova Scotia, in his recent sprech at Detroit, considers equal to the force of 800,000,000 of men, became an advocate of free trade, so far as it applies to the importation of materials and the exportation of manufac- tures. Having reached a high point in the cultivation of her soil, she desired to increase her supplies of breadstuffs and thus cheapen skill and labor, and aimed to furnish all nations with her numerous manufactures fashioned from their rude materials by the force she had warmed into life, which toiled for her with- out fee or reward. To accomplish this object, she was obliged to repeal many protective duties, and to admit wheat and provisions and varied productions of foreign lands in competition with those from her Colonics. Her Colonies were exasperaced and it soon appeared that she could not retain their allegiance, without providing for them new markets and giving a new stimulus to their navigation and fisheries. She became solicit: :;s also to carry her principle of free trade into the United States, and make a treaty with the Colonies an entering wedge for new commercial undertakings. Canada had thus far relied upon her vast rafts of timber floated down the St. Lawrence to Quebec, and her ships built for sale at Liverpool and Glasgow for exports, and she saw with dismay the pine and fir of Norway supersede her timber, and the iron steam-ship displace the ships and steamers she was building at Quebec. She began to seek a new avenue to the sea, through New York ^nd New Plngland, and new markets in our growing cities and villages. for the products of her agricu.ture. Nova Scotia, with forests and fisheries at her gates, and beds of coal and gypsum bordering on the sea, desired free access to our great seaports to dispose of her fish and coal, and give employment to her seamen. „,j^,..,^^,„ ^^^^, f y*|j?!«»-'-i'f»p^ v\* M i . / / ,f;i- If, THE FISHEBIES. lew lies The British Isles and the Colonies continued to press for Reciprocity. They found the United States engaged in the development of their agriculture and manufactures, with pro- gressive navigation, and not prepared for so important a change ; but the Provinces were urgent ; they were able to show the patronage they would give to railways and manufactures. Articles were written for magazines and active agents retained, but the lever with which they moved the United States was a combination against her fisheries«~the cod, herring and mackerel fisheries of the United States.* The English who first came to our shores embarked in the fisheries, and our Pilgrim fathers, within three years after they landed, established fishing stations at Cape Ann. More than twenty sail of fishing vessels were annually on our coasts, 240 years since, and before the Revolution the men of Massachusetts are reported by Burke as extending their voyages to the Arctic and Antarctic Seas. They followed the cod, herring and mackerel to the coasts of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. The fishing towns were surrounded by flakes on which they dried their spoil, and in winter they transported it on their small craft to Spain, the Carolinas and the West Indies. The hardy fishermen, with the son of a fisherman, Sir W. Pepperell, at their head, conducted the siege of Louisburg, where they captured a fortress which had cost five millions of dollars and was defended by 200 cannon. In the Revolution they manned the navy of the Union and contributed to the success of our country by raising the rate of insurance on British vessels to 50 per cent.,f and as Curwen .jtates in his memoir, in two years captured 738 ships and property worth $26,000,000. They fought both by sea and land, and Qi leral Knox, the chief of our artillery in 1777, does them justice. " I wish," he said, in his address, to the legislature of which he was a mem- ber, " that you could have heard Washington on that stormy night, when the floating masses of ice in the Delaware threat- ened to defeat his enterprise, demand who will lead us on, and * The hidtory of these Fisheries is well given by Hon. L. Sabine in his able report to which I am iudebtad for valuable fijcts and suggestions. t It wa« again raised to the same rate in the war of 1812. m MABBLEHEAD. seen the men of Marblehead, and Marblehead alone, stand for- waxd to lead the army along the perilous path, to unfading glories and honors in the achievements of Trenton. There went the fishermen of Marblehead, alike at homo on land or water, alike ardent, patriotic and imfiinching, wherever they unfurled the flag of their country." In i/72 the voters of Marblehead were 1,203. In 1780 but 644 voters remained. The residue were represented by 458 widows and 966 orphan^ The orphan*; of Marblehead subse- quently manned the Constitution and other frigates in the war of 1812. At the conferences at Paris, which preceded the peace of 1788, John Adams insisted on our right to the fisheries, although Congress was willing to resign them. " If use and possession give right, ' he said to the Commis- sioners, " we have it as clearly as you. If war, blood and treasure give a right, ouri is as good as yours." " We," con- tinued ho, in the same eloquent strain, " have constantly been fighting in Caiiada, Capo Breton and Nova Scotia, for the defence of this fishery, and have expended beyond all propor- tion more than you. If, then, the right cannot be denied, why should it not be acknowledged and put out of dispute. Why should we leave room for illiterate fishermen to wrangle and chicane." John Adams made the right an ultimatum, and it was recognized to its full extent in the treaty of 1783 ; we were entitled by it to fish wherever tlie people of the country had fished before. With the close of tlie war our fisheries revived, and in 1804 tlie export of dry fish rose to 567,800 quintals ; their value to §2,400,000. The export of other fish to 89,482 barrels. Their value to «'«40,000. Our rights in the fisheries wore not abrogated by the war of 1812. They were not resigned, but revived with the treaty in 1814. The Commissiouors who negctin^'»d this treaty state that their instructions forbade them to sufibr our right to the fisheries to be brought in question. They observe, — " "We contended that tlie whole ti-eiity of 1 78"» must ho considered one tsntiro permanent compact, not liable, liko ordinary treaties, to bo ' abrogated by n subsequent war, by tlio parties to it, as an instrumenl recognizing the rights and liberties enjoyed by the people of the United CONVENTION OF 1818. 9^ [ J04 to keir of in koir to [red bo keni ited Statee as an independent'- nation, and containing the terms and condi- tions on which the two parties to one empire had rautaally agreed henceforth to constitute two distiuct and separate nations, the people of the United States reserving the right of fishing and drying and curing fcu previously enjoyed, and this reservation was agreed to by the oAer contracting party. This was not forfeited by the war, and no new recognition was required. We stated this principle to the British plenipotentiaries, in ihe note we sent them, with our project of the" treaty, and no reply to the note of our Commissioners was made, and the treaty was silent as to the fisheries." * While this treaty of peace was pending the venerable John Adams #rote to President Monroe : — " I would continue this war forever rather than surrender one acre of our territory, one iota of our fisheries, as established by the Sd article ofthetieatyof 1783.'* On the 20th of October, 1818, a convention was entered into with Great Britain by Messrs. Gallatin and Bush, to obtain a recognition of the right of fishing on the coasts of Newfound- land, which they secured, with the privilege of entering the bays, creeks and harbors of the Provinces, for shelter and repairs. The Commissioners, by this convention, renounced, for the United States, the right to take or cure fish within three miles of "the coasts, bays, harbors and creeks of the Provinces," (except Newfoundland and Labrador and the Magdalen Isles,) but reserved the right to enter them for shelter and repairs. Upon the day on which they signcl Uie convention, they wrote to J. Q. Adams, our Secretary of State, that this clause was introduced and insisted on by them, to prevent any impli- cation that the fisheries were secured to \\b by a now grant, and to show that our renunciation extended only three miles from the coast. For twenty-throe yoai-s after the convention, down to 1841, but one construction was given to this convention by botli parties and tho fishermen, viz.: that by "bays" were meant the small bays to which tho fishermen resorted for shelter and roi)air8 ; but in 1841, after this conclusive acquiescence, the colonists gave a new construction to " bays," and insisted that the couvoutiou precluded the fishermen of tho United States 10 CONFISCATION OF YW^ELS. from entering the Bay of Fundy, a gulf sixty miles wi4e, the great Bay of Chaleurs, and the Strait of Ganso, through which our fishermen had pursued their voyages for more than a cen- tury, and through which a British Admiral, in 1839, saw a fleet of 600 sail of our fishermen pass without molestation. When Great Britain and the Provinces became solicitous, in 1845, for such a treaty as they had previously declined, and after we had permitted them to import fish at a moderate duty, and to enter it in bond for exportation, they seized with avidity this new construction. The Province of Nova Scotia passed Acts confiscating our vessels if they passed the line drawn three miles from the coast, and exonerating the officers from ilamages for detention, if the judge should find any probable cause for seizure. Cape Breton was annexed to Nova Scotia, and after the union the legislature laid out counties across the Strait of Canso, to bridle a great avenue of commerce. Ships of war wore sent out year by year to watch our vessels, and in 1852 Great Britain, Canada^ Nova Scotia and New Brun»>. wick fitted out and sent to the fishing groun«.^s no less than eighteen armed vessels to watch and arrest our fishermen, whcse trade was thus injured to the extent of millions. The aid of Messrs. Stevenson, Everett and Lawronce, at London, was invoked, but the Nova Scotians, including some eminent men, now in favor of the treaty, insisted upon their new constraction, and the crown lawyers were led to give an opinion in their favor. This opinion, it appears to me, is entirely untenable. It was not given with much care or deliberation as the counsel base their opinion upon the term " headlands," which they cite as found in the convention, where the word does not occur. As it had no existence there, the decisions based on it should be revised. The Great Bay of Pucdy also has but one head- land on British territory, and borders for many miles on the c Mst of Maine. The term bays is by the language of the Act liLiitod to bays of shelter and suitable foi repairs and to take wood and water by the words ^hat follow, and the Great Bays or Gulfs of Fundy and Chaleurs und other bays exceeding six^ miles in width at their outlets are unsuitable for the purposOf and consequently excluded. L BEGIFBOGITT TBEATT. n . ) An acquiescence for twenty-throe years and contemporaneous exposition by those who drew the treaty are also conclusive, and the ministers of Great Britain were driven by Mr. Everett to abandon their pretensions to the Bay of Fundy, and if not deterred by Nova Scotia, would have restricted the law to bays less than six miles wide at their outlet, having once come to that determination.* But the Provinces were not easily quieted ; a collision was imminent, and our Government yielding to the pressure became parties to a treaty, and its abrogation will revive the questions of 1845 to 1852 as to our rights in the fisheries. During the interval between 1845 and 1852 com- plaints were made by the colonists of the aggressions of our fishermen, of nets displaced on the coasts and in the Strait of Ganso, and of daily trespasses, but since they obtained access to our home markets on terms of perfect equality, and since they recognized the right of our fishermen to frequent all their shores, the cessation of complaints furnishes a strong presumption that the fishermen, were harmless and innocuous before the adoption of the treaty. Reciprocity Treaty. This treaty made by Lord Elgin and Vf. L. Marcy, July 5th, 1854, to take efiect when satified by Great Britain, the United States and the Pro . inces, provides, — Articles 1st and 2d, That the fishermen of the United States shall, during the continuance of the treaty, have the right to take fish, of all kinds except shellfish, m common with British subjects, at any distance from the 8hor«) on the coasts and on the bays, harbors and creeks of Canada, New Brunswick, Nova . * Our righU to tho great Days of i<'untly and Chaleun aro recognised by the Umpire under .he treaty of 1854 in determining tho validity of a beizure made prior to the treaty and as early at 1848. His decision was that the Bay of Fundy 'Taa QOt a British bay, nor a lay witiiln tho meaning of the words bays in the treaties of 1783 and 1818. The dedsion, is cited by Wheaton, page 820, and is mentioned by Ilaut^ feuille on Rights of Neutral Nations, Vol. 1, page 80, cited by Wheaton. Oar right to fish in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and in ail other places in tho sea where tne inhabitants of both countries (the United States and Great Britain) used at any time heretofore to fish was conceded by the British Gov- ernment through Lord Bathurst in 1816. American State Papers, Vol. 4| page 852. Our right to navl|ate the Strait of Canso is asserted by Wheaton, page 828. 12 TEBMS OF TUB TBBA,TT. Sootia and Prince Edward Island, with liberty to land as\d cure fish on all those shores, and on the Magdalen Islands without interfering with private rights and property of British subjects. These rights do not extend to the river fisheries. Similar rights are granted to British fishermen on our shores and coasts north of latitude 36. The Act provides also for appointment of a oomnussioner by each party to determine what rights are reserved to individuals and to settle all differences. Article M provides that the articles enumerated in the sched- ule below, the growth and produce of said colonies or of the Uoited States, shall be admitted into each coimtry respectively, free of duty. Schedule. T-GramyfLoMX and breadstuffi; animals of all kinds; ashes ; fresh, smoked and salted meats ; timber and lumber of all kinds, round, hewed and sawed and unmanufactured ; cotton, wool, seeds and vegetables ; undried fruits, dried fruit ; fish of all kinds ; products of fish and all the creatures living in the water ; poultry ; eggs ; hides, furs, skins or tails undressed ; stone or marble in its crude or imwrought state ; slate ; butter, cheese, tallow ; ores of metals of all kinds ; coal ; \mmaau- factured tobacco ; pitch, tar, turpentine ; firewood ; plants, shrubs, trees ; pelts ; wool ; fish oil ; rice and broom-corn ; barks, gypsum, ground and unground; wrought or unwrought burr and grindstones ; dyestuffs ; flax, hemp and tow unmanufac- tured rags. / Article 4th secures to the citizens of the United States the right to the free navigation of the St. Lawrence and British canals with vessels and boats, and to British subjects the right to navigate Lake Michigan, and the United States agree to urge their State goveinments to allow British subjects to use their canals ; ordinary tolls to be paid in both cases. The British Government reserves a right to suspend navigation, but in such case the Government of tlie United States may suspend the third article. Tliis article also provides that no export duty shall be Ifut on timber of citizens of the United States, descending the river St. John and its tributaries destined for the United States. Articles 6/A, Qt/i and 7age have thus far annually passed down the St. Lawrence from the lakes to the ocean. It is a valuable outlet for our cereals, but its importance must depend in a groat measure upon the enlargement of the canals and increase of their depth to twelve to fifteen feet to suit a class of vessels adapted to the navigation of the ocean. The most important article of the treaty is the third, which defines the free list, and its chief importance to us lies in its free admission of all the products of Colonial fisheries, agriculture, forests and mines into our country. • To illustrate the value and effects of this provision, I submit a tabular statement of the imports from the above Provinces into the United States, and the exports to them from the United for a series of years preceding and following the adoption of the treaty, which did not take full eflFect xrntil 1865 from delay of its ratification. 14 EXPOBTS AND IMPOBTS UNDER TRBATT. Htports and Importt from United State* to Britieh North Ameriean J^rovinceSf exclusive of those on the Pacific, from July, U51, to «/tiifi(r, 1862. (rrraoi Offletol lUportr of Uw United Statot.] Exrosn noic Umitid Statu. H A Fonign. DomMtte. Total Ezporte. iKTOBTt nro VaniB Statu. 1852, 1^, 1864, 1855, 1856, 1867, 1858, 1850, 1800, 1861, 1862, 13,853,919 00 6,736,555 00 9,862,716 00 11,999,878 00 6,314,652 00 4,826,869 00 4,012,768 00 6,622,478 00 4,088,899 00 3,861,098 00 2,427,108 00 96,655,007 00 7,404,087 00 15,204,144 00 15,806,642 00 22,714,607 00 10,086,118 00 10,688,050 00 17,029,254 00 18,687,429 00 18,888,715 00 18,652,012 00 910,609,016 00 18,140,642 00 24,666,860 00 27,806,020 00 29,029,840 00 24,262,482 00 23,651,727 00 28,154,174 00 22,706,828 00 22.079.115 00 21.079.116 00 96,110,290 00 7,650,718 00 8,929,569 00 15,186,784 00 21,810,421 00 22,129,296 00 15,806,519 00 10,727,661 00 28,851,881 00 28,062,088 00 10,200,006 00 In our commerce with the Provinces our arnual exports and imports rose from $2,100,000 in 1828 to $8,800,000 in 1882 ; $8,100,000 in 1840 ; $9,800,000 in 1846 ; $18,700,000 in 1851 ; $50,300,000 in 1856 ; and feU to $40,400,000 in 1862. Since 1862 there has been a recovery ; the aggregate of imports and exports in the commerce with the Provinces, hav- ing risen in 1865 to $68,000,000, under large importations from Canada. From the tables you will notice that the trade was in its infancy down to 1829, just before the time when Mr. McLean made an arrangement for free ports and the removal of some of tbe restraints on coftmierce, and that the growth was rapid, more than 20 per cent, per annum, in tho four years from 1.328 to 1832. That the advance was still rapid or 14 per cent, per annum down to 1840. That the movement then continued slow i down to 1846, when goods came in more freely aad fish and flour wore admitted under bond for exportation. During this period the growth was loss than 2\ per cent a year. But with now privileges and tho prosjwct of Reciprocity tho EXPORTS AND IMPORTS OF CANADA. 16 ( 1 trade gained for the next five years 20 per cent, annually, and rose in five years more at the rate of 27 per cent, per annum, to $50,300,000 in 1856, and, strange as it may appear, declined 25 per cent, or more than 4 per cent, per annum down to 1862, the eighth yettr of Reciprocity, when it receded to $40,300,000, showing a loss of $10,000,000. This decline was confined to the Canadian commerce. It becomes an important inquiry what measures caused this great decline, and upon further investigation We discover that the decline ^as in our exports to Canada which fell from 1856, when they were $20,883,241, to 1862 when such exports were but $12,842)506. The reduction was in round numbers, a reduction of eight millions in exports, accompanied by a reduction of two millions in importations. It is my duty also to draw your attention to another fact shown by these exhibits, and still more forcibly by the returns of Canadian trade, that prior to the Reciprocity Treaty, which took effect, as we have suggested, in 1855, our exports to the Province^ usually exceeded our imports, but in 1860 this was reversed, and since that period imports have exceeded our exports in commerce with the Provinces. Our trade with Canada may be illustrated by a brief tabular statement of exports and imports. B!xport$ from the United StcUei to Canada, and' Import* from Canada. [Tkkra Crom th* OtBeUl Tsblti of th« tTniteU t,:-\tM.] DATE. EzporU to Cuada. ImporU flrom Canada. r 1850, . . 15,890,821 00 r •4,285,470 GO fiefore Treaty, . 1851, . . 7,929,140 00 4,056,471 00 .3' 1858, . . 7,829,090 00 5,278,116 00 •wiUP.IfiiKStS^JiWtfoi r 185e, . . 20,883,241 00 17,488,197 00 .:&W': ■^msi^i^f.' 1867, . . 16,574,806 00 18,291,884 00 ■:jfew4"*v 1801, . . 14,861,858 00 18,645,457 00 Since Tkvaty, . .- 1862, . . 12,842,504 00 15,253,162 00 1868, . . 19,808,718 00 18,816,090 00 1864, . . 16,668,420 00 80,074,118 00 186S, . . 18,806,407 00 80,647,267 00 I '|6 EXPOBIb AND QfPCXBTS OF GBBAT BBITAIN. IP I / Of the above exports there were of 1861, specie, 1368,308 ; 1862, $2,530,297 ; 1868,14,662,679; 1864, $2,300,000, The excess of imports into the United States over esiports to Oanada since 1860, deduced from the above tables snd from the Beport of the Minister of Finance in Angxist lapt, has been more than $80,000,000. The Canadian table« ditfer somewhat * from our official tables. In considering the remarkable change which has taken place In the course of pur trade with Canada, I shall endeavor to guard against the danger of attaching any undue importance to the ancient theory of the balance of trade. It may safely be oonceded that the excess of imports over exports is not in all cases conduaye proof that commerce is unprofitable. The commerce of Great Britain for a series of years, has shown a large excess of imports over exports, accom- panied by an excess of arrivals over shipments of specie and great progrcRs in national wealth. \ Her exports and imports have been as follows : — ^ DATB. Expoiti. Imports. 1858, . 1859, . 1860, . 1861, . L862, . ilH9,782,000 165,692,000 164,521,000 159,682,000 167,189,000 £165,588,000 179,182,000 210,530.000 217,486,000 226,592,000 Tlie excess of imports may spring from the use of capital abroad, from freights and profits, in which case the excess of imports indicates addition to wealth, and not accumulating debt. A change in the balance of trade might not alone warrant the abrogation of a treaty, but it does warrant investigation. We may concede, safely, that a treaty of reciprocity, which i^djusts the quarrels of nations and does equal justice to each, is most desirable for the country, and at the same time point out omis- sions and objectionable features in a treaty we have abrogated, tnth a view to one more perfect and comprehensive. i OBJECTIONS TO THE TREATY. 17 $3,308 ; ports to d from as been newhat tn place ttvor to ortanoo ts over nmeroe leries of aocom- oie and V rte. 588,000 182,000 ),000 86,000 •92,000 :apital ?ess of debt. it the We djusts most lomis- ited, There were, and are, various objections to the treaty about to expire. First. While it quieted strife and restored the rights secured by the treaty of '83 to our fisheries, from which spring the seamen to man our navy, the mates, masters, and intrepid merchants who have guided our keels to the very confines of the earth — it gave to the maritime provinces our home market, and the incentive to improve the fisheries at their doors, for the pursuit of which, they have advantages which were counterbiolanced by our intel- ligence and homo markets aloD'>. We should make the fisheries accessory to our own progress, not to that of Great Britain. If the maritime provinces would join us spontaneously to-day — sterile as they may be in soil, imder a sky of steel — still, with their hardy population, their harbors, fisheries, and seamon, they would greatly improve and strengthen our position and aid v in our struggle for equality upon the ocean. If we would succeed upon the deep, we must either maintain our fisheries, or absorb the provinces. In 1863, the tonnage of Great Britain and her colonies was 6,041,358 ; ours 4,986,397. The disparity is now greater. For our gi'eat home market ^r her cod and mackerel, her whale oil, whalebone and seal oil, and the impulse it gives to the proviuQ^al fisheries and navigation of Great Britain, have we thus far sufiicient equivalents ? Another feature in the treaty, is, the impulse it gives to the coal mines of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. The shipment of coal from these provinces to the United States, has increased from 220,000 tons in 1863, to at least 400,000 tons in 1865. This is doubtless very acceptable to our commercial cities on the coast ; but it comes free from duty to compete with the black diamonds from our mines, which contribute to the expense? of the war — virtually it comes with a bounty against our own productions. The revenue thus suffers, and the foreign minei realizes the profits. If a new treaty be made, some equivalen' should bo given for this, or a moderate tax may be imposed for the benefit of the treasury. We are not, however, to forget thai we already export from 105,000 to 171,000 tons of coal U Canada, a part of which ascends the Hudson and reaches Mon treal, while a part crosses Erie and Ontario, into Canada West* 8 18 TRANSIT TRADE. i! ' K Again, we permitted the Provinces, at the moment Oreat Britain was importing the pine of Norway, and they were losing the market for a third or half of their timber, to send it hero and enter the home market, on equal terms with our own lumbermen. The lumber, as well as the products of the fisheries, flow from the Provinces to the markets of the Union, and there is little or no reciprocity on these articles. The Provinces require little of our fish or our lumber. If we make undue concessions, Howe, the organ of Nova Scotia, at our Detroit convention, may well compare us and the provinces " to the Triune Trefoil," which hangs from the stem of Great Britain. If lumber were not free to-day, a duty of five per cent, on our own lumber, and of ten per cent, on that of the Provinces, would doubtless place five millions in our national coffers ; but the insertion of lumber on our free list, deprives us of this revenue, while it enhances the value of Canadian forests. It is doubtless true, that freedom from duties enables Canada \ to send through New York and Maine, wheat and flour for * foreign shipment, and enables the West to send to Montreal a portion of its surplus, to reach an outlet for Europe, at Montreal. This interchange is doubtless beneficial to all parties, but this transit trade gives but little stimulus to production. The conunerce which terminates in consumption in Canada, consists of the shipment to her of a moderate amount of c<^ and red wheat, with some coal and salt, and a less amount of otir coarser products, provisions and imported goods. While Canada sends to us for consumption her animals and products of the forest-and of agriculture, she buys but little of any more of our manufactures than she did before the treaty, — although in the last twelve years, she has added two-fifths to her population, and nearly doubled her productions and consumption, — there are important deficiencies in the free list, to which it is my duty to call your attention, which should be borne in mind upon revision of the treaty. Salt. The treaty is silent upon the subject of salt. This is an important production, both of New York and Michigan. Jt is produced near the lakes, and may be easily transported ;to .the section of Canada \K>rdering upon the lakes, and is as smUP, TOOLS AND IMPLEMENTS. 19 appropriate for the free list as slate, marble, gypsum or ashes. It is a production of the soil, and essential to our animal life. It is singular that it was omitted.* Maple and Sorqhum Sibup. ^ These also are products of the forest and agriculture, and come within the spirit of the treaty, and should be included. Sorghum does not flourish in Oanada, but is extensively culti- vated at the "West. Tools and Implements. The treaty includes in its schedule, the nuUstone and the grindstone, both implements, the one to sharpen the axe, the other to manufacture wheat into flour. These are produced in the provinces, but the treaty is bilent with respect to other tools; the axe, the plough, tlbe shovel, and the reaper, which are fashioned by the artisans of New England and the West. The laws of Canada and some of the other provinces, are so deficiei t in reciprocity, that no patent can be taken there by a citizen of the Uuion. The Canadian minister of linance, concedes, that tools, implements and machinery, and books, should be included. He concedes patents also. If a new treaty be made let it also provide for a patent law, and for copy-rights, to do justice to inventors and authors, and let it also contain a provision that all tools, implements, and machinery, be added to the free list. It would be desirable also to include in this list our manufactures of leather, tin, copper, castings, pins, buttons, types, utensils, carriages, furniture and other articles. I would also suggest that while it is desirable for both parties to except from the schedule the articles of spirit, tobacco, sugar, molasses, and costly fabrics of silk, flax and wool, as important sources of revenue ; and while it is desirable to withdraw coal, lumber, and barley, and the products of the fisheries, from the free list, it may be politic to provide that these last products of each country and all others, not specifically excepted, shall be subject to duties, not exceeding fifteen per cent., or to duties as low as those of Canada before the Reciprocity Treaty. * Canada now admit* lalt wUhont intj, althoagh omitted in the free list. r I I! REASONS FOR RENEWAL. There are gentlemen of intelligence, and posnibly some states- men, who think it will be politic to allow the treaty to expire without any efforts or arrangement for a renewal ; who predict that in such case the Provinces will range themselyes under our banner, and seek admission into the Union. This accession would doubtless be beneficial ; it would bring to the Union a white population which will in 1868, possibly before the measure could be consummated, reach four millions. It would bring to us two thousand miles of railways, and vast forests and mines, and fisheries and mariners, and nearly two- thirds of a million tons of shipping ; but will this accession be ^cured by the loss of the treaty ? Is there not danger that the termination of the treaty will result in mercantile losses, strife and alienation ? * Peace and a prosperous commerce create friendship, and tend to alliance ; and will it not be wise to make a fair treaty, one of equivalents ; to impose moderate diities for revenue on fish, coal, lumber, the chief subjects of the treaty, after agriculture ; to place salt, tools, and machinery, and implements of agricul- ture, with other items, in the free list ; to secure patents and copy-rights ; to remove all discriminations ; and let the Provin- . ciab look forward to a union which will eventually remove these duties, increase their wealth and contribute to their improve- ments ? Is the present moment, when we are mastering a debt of twenty-eight hundred millions by severe taxation, an auspi- cious one for bringing in new States to share our burden? When we have reduced our debt and our taxes, and shown that they rest lightly on our shoulders, and England has paid for our losses by her cruisers, will not the moment be more auspicious for the enlargement of our territories ?| We have traced the successive stages of the growth of the coQunerce with the Provinces, doubling in seven years after the completion of the Erie Canal, and rising to more than ^ See remarks of distingoiahed ProTindals io the Appendix, page 82. t The debt of Cknadft in proportion to its Msessed wealth is nearly two* thirds the size of our own. The interest upon onr debt can be met by moderate duties on liquors, cotton, tobacco and coffee, without bearing hearilj on the FroTinces should thej hereafter join us " spontaneously," as suggested by the " London Times." In 1868 our population will reach 40 millions. We hare lost but half a million by the war. ■li-- BESOUBCIUS OF CANADA. fifty millions in 1856, the second year of the Treaty of Recip- rocity. During the ten years from 1851 to 1861, which comprise four ye^rs prior to the treaty and six that followed, all the Provinces made rapid progress^ but Canada was pro-eminent. From 1851 to 1861 the population of Canada increased more rapidly than the popidation of the Union. It had gained 86 per cent. In 1860 the population of all the Provinces was as follows : — ' * . ;.i Canada, .... New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, . Newfoundland, . Prince Edwards Island, . . 2,601,888 . 233,777 ^ . 230,699 . . . 124,608 . . 80,648 Aggregate, t . . 3,271,570 The rate of increase in all the Provinces was nearly equal to that of the Union. . Canada led in commerce and revenue as well as in popula- tion. In the fifteen years from 1851 to 1865, the whole exports and imports of Canada rose from $35,000,000 to $87,000,000. Her revenue rose also from $3,500,000 to $10,500,000. Between 1851 and 1861 her improved land increased from 7,807,950 acres to 10,855,854, or 49 per cent. ; the value of the same from $263,516,000 to $466,675,780. The wheat crop, which exceeds that of Illinois and of each of our States, rose from 15,756,493 bushels to 27,274,779, or 78 per cent. The oat crop, larger than that of New York, the leading State of our Union, rose from 20,369,247 bushels to 38,772,170, or 91 per cent. During the same period the value of her lumber rose from an average of $7 to $10 per M. And in the interval between 1851 and 1863 her export of lumber rose from $5,085,628, of which but 23 per cent, reached the United States, to a total of $12,264,178, of which a third— nearly as much as the former importation of Great Britain — came to the United States. For a series of years prior to 1846, the imports of Canada from the United States greatly axceeded |i ,:i •■ 'i! i! i'S! i' V i I' 22 PINANCUL STATEMENT OP MINI8TEB OP FINANCE. the exports, and great disparity continued down to the Reci- procity Treaty ; but since 1860 the balance of trade has been reversed. The statement of the minister of finance to the Canadian Parliament on the 29th of August last shows the present con- dition of Canadian commerce. He gives us for the year a revenue o^ $10,528,000, collected at a cost of 13 per cent. Imports for the year ending June 30, 1865, exclusive of specie, .... Specie imports, Exports of the year, exclusive of specie, Specie exports, $39,851,991 00 4,768,478 00 40,792,966 00 1,688,191 00 The results present a balance for tne year of'nearly one mil- lion of exports over imports, independent of specie ; and a balance of gold close upon three milli'^ns. And, since this report was made, it is currently reported that the sales of white and red wheats horses and other stock by Canadians for the past quarter to this country will reach eight millions. The luinister in his speech estimates an addition of si^: per cent, to the revenue for the coming year, and gives us the following items of income : — Customs, '.'"'. ". . $6,166,000 00 ' Excise on spirit, beer and tobacco, . 1,660,000 00 PostHjffice, 470,000 00 Public lands,. Ocean postage. Territorial income. Sundries, 450,000 00 70,000 00 650,000 00 1,650,000 00 In illustrating the trade with the United Statos ho assumes the imports froin our country into Canada for tho preceding years, 1860, Ul, '62 and '63, to be $18,879,006 more than arc shown by our ofiicial statements. The discrepancy weakens his IMPORTS AND EXPORTS OP CANADA FOR 1865. 23 argument, but does not affect his returns for the current year.* His statement contains a very full analysis of the exports to the United States for the year. After deducting the specie from each, he gives us the results : — Imports from all couutries, and exports to the ' same, . . . . . . . $87.^01,620 00 Exports to the United States, . . .' ' . $21,350,350 00 Imp6rts from the UnHed States, exclusive of specie, for year ending June 30, 1865, . 14,820,557 00 Excess of exports, . . . ' . ' '. $6,529,793 00 To liquidate this balance from our country Cuiiada has received a large amount of specie. The entire importation of specie from all countries having been $4,768,478, he leads us to the result that while the exports of Canada to the world exceed the imports by nearly a million, the imports on goods from our country are six and a half mil- lions less than those Canada has sold to our citizens, and he leaves us to infer that we liquidate the principal part of the balance in specie. If any part of our exports have been valued in greenbacks, the deficit will be still greater. The exports of Canada to the United States are shown by him to bo, — . Lumber, $5,000,000 00 Animals, of which two-fifths. are horses, 4,478,000 00 Wool, 1,851,722 00 Barley and oats, . Manufactures, Butter, Meats, Other products of animals, . Balance, wheat, flour, &c., . 4,500,000 00 460,000 00 340,899 00 484,890 00 891,000 00 4,448,839 00 $21,350,850 00 *Tho $18,879,006 added by tho Miniitor of Finance arc doubtless goods wiiicli pass via tlio Grand Trunk from Great Dritain to the St. Lawrence, without brcnkinti bulk; they are not entered on our official reports, and, carried liy British steamers and a British railway, are British exports. Our shipments down tho Lawrence are less ; but $6,000,000 for two years, — '60 and 'CI. li u COUBSE OF CANADA UNDER RESTBIGTIONS. . .V He regards the trade iu wheat or flour as a mere interohange between the United States and Provinces, the exports from <]/anada being compensated for in part by the imports into Can- ada, and are not greater than th? shipment from the United States to the maritime provinces The minister, in the course of hiu speech, beside giving ^13 these particulars, makes several important suggestions. First — ^That Canada would be disposed to erlarge her canals if she could be admitted to register her shipping and participate in the coasting trhde. That the men who formerly led pubM", opinion in England, and who thought colonies a burden, had lost their influence. That if wo put duties on Canadian products, they would open trade with the maritime provinces, and send them floar and barley, and would fatten dwine on their coarse grains, instead of our corn ; that they could change the character of t'leir pro- ductions. He states, also, that Canada has been allowed by Great Britain to come in under the new treaty with France, and is increasing its trade with tho maritime provinces and foreign nations, from which they now iaport three and a quarter mil- lions dollars. That our country could not sustain high duties on a variety of imports without illicit trade, which might be cli^ckcd if Canada were friendly ; but if wo built a Chinese wall of restriction, if there was to bo no intercourse, the United States must look after their own frontier. That if we did not send them corn and take barley, they could distill the latter ; that the returns of distillation might not cover oil the spirit, so much was sent out of the country, some legally and su^'i illegally. That he and his colleagues thought smugglbg might bo chocked by a friendly spirit and the selec- tion of certain articles on which duties might bo assimilated, and they wore ready to moot the commissioners of the United ^tatos in a friendly spirit and listen to their suggestions. In his very moderate return of imports from the United States, (114,820,557) he sots vlown corn end coarse grains, $1,800,000 ; moats, 1870,968 ; clioeso, |80(>,618 ; wool, $174,071 ; other pro- ducts of animals, $814,599; fish, $257,901, but gives no addi- donal items. Wo ht^vo thus, from official sources, the position of Canada and the views uf lior Government, and it is apparent that she BENEFITS OF TBEATT. 25 has prospered under the treaty. From 1861 to 1861 she has increased her miles of railway from twelve to nineteen hundred ; she has increased her wheat and oat crops, her wool, the value of her forests and wealth more than we have, although she is naturally inferior in climate, soil and position. She has, by her select conunittee on commerce, appointed in 1868, conceded that for some years prior to the Keciprocity Treaty the grain of the United States was worth 25 per cent, more than the grain of Canada, and now in both countries the treaty has for ten years Jkept it at nearly the same level. She is disposed to build our ships and take a large part of the coasting trade, and as an inducement for such concession she may possi- bly deepen her canals, to divert the trade of the West. Already has Canada made free ports on her coasts to the extent of one or two thousand miles on the shores of Lake iluron and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, doubtless to tempt our fishermen and frontiersmen to evade our duties, and now we are told distinctly that we must expect illicit trade if we adopt a system of restric- tion. The Committee of Congress on Commerce, in their report on Reciprocity, in February, 1862, well suggest that in admitting Canada to the commercial advantages she would enjoy if she wore a State of the Union, we had a right to expect from her in return the same commercial privileges which each State of the Union confers upon the others ; wo have given her all those privileges except those she now desires, and which wo hesitate to concede in consequence of her connection with a great empire, which declines to do us justic3. She has, with those conceded, achieved great success, and the question now arises, what recip- rocal privileges has bhe given us ? — have they proved to be an equivalent for those we havo conced(jd ? The reports of Mr. Andrews and of the Committee on Commerce, to which wo havo referred, present many conclusive answers to this question. Before the treaty, Mr. Andrews, in his preliminary report — a document submitted by Mr. Corwin to our Senate — said, " that it would bo wise to place the border trade between the United States and the Colonies on a different basis and under the influ- ence of a higher principle, so as to mature and perfect a com- plete system of mutual exchanges between the dilforeiit nations of this vast continent." Whilo the treaty was pending. Lord 26 INDUCEMENTS TO THE TBEATT. |l ' II \i Elgin, the British minister at Washington, alleged that " Canada had always adopted the most liberal commercial policy with respect to the United States, as well in regard to the commerce through its canals as in regard to the admission of manufac- tured goods coming from this country, and if the natural pro- duct» of that country (Canada) should be admitted duty free, that Government would be willing to carry out still further the same liberal policy already pursued towards the manufactures of the United States." The treaty itself recited that the parties *'were desirous so to regulate the commerce and navigation between their respective territories and people, and more espe- cially between her Majesty's possessions in North America and thp United States, in such manner as to render the same recip- rocally beneficial and satisfactory." ^j With these intentions, thus expressed, the treaty was exe- cuted and commerce commenced. When the treaty took effect by the President's proclamation, March 17; 1855, the duties in Canada were very moderate, but 5 per cent, on some commodities, and 10 per cent, on others, but 12^ per cent, on our boots, shoes, leather, harnesses, and many of our other products ; but within a year after the treaty Canada began to advance these duties, and by 1859 had raised them 62J per cent, on one class, and 100 per cent, on another, embracing our chief manufactures, and most of them were thus excluded and the sale of others reduced. The Committee of Congress on Commerce in 1862 complained in tlicir report that the duties levied on our manufactures and other products had checked their exportation from the United States to Canada, that our conuncrce with that country reached its height in 1856 and then began to decline with the advance of duties, that our exports which paid duties to Canada declined from $7,981,284 in 1866, the year after the treaty was adopted, to $4,197,816 in 1860, a decline of 47 per cent, in four years only, while the whole amount of our Canadian commerce declined 25 jjcr cent, from 1856, when the duties wore low, to 1862 when they were high. The committee suggest that if Cana'la required more revenue, her attempt to raise it by new duties on our manufactures was a failure. It effected nothing but their exclusion. The committee in this connection draw attention to tho fact that while Canada urges that she was ) I FBEE PORTS. 27 tplaiDcd res and United cached dvanco eclined doptod, years nmerce low, that if jy new liothing 11 draw 10 was obliged to raise duties for revenue, she has established two great free ports — the port of Gaspe on the Gulf of St. Lf ,wrence, with a frontage of 1,200 miles on shores frequented by our fisher- men, and another extending for 1,000 miles from the Sault St. Mary, at the outlet of Lake Superior, along the shores of Huron and Superior, where our settlers and seamen engaged in the growing transportation of the lakes may be tempted to buy goods and evade our duties. If legitimate trade be the object of Canada, she should reduce her duties, when they diminish revenue, and if fair reciprocal trade is desired, should she tempt our mariners, miners and settlers to evade our duties, and com- pel us to establish ports and custom houses at great expense upon a long frontier ? . If Great Britain maintains Gibraltar to extend her trade on the coast of Spain, must wo have a Gibraltar on our frontiers also? Our committee complain of the change from specific to ad valorem duties on foreign goods, which are based on prime cost in gold, if they come by the St. Lawrence or by the Grand Trunk a British Railway, but are assessed on cost, freight, and charges if not prices in currency if they come via Boston or New York. This the committee deem an evasion of the treaty. They complain also of discriminating tolls on the Welland Canal, by which goods destined via Oswego and Ogdens- burg for New York or Boston pay tenfold the tolls required on goods diverted from our ports to Quebec or Montreal. They cite the reports of Messrs. Hatch ir, Taylor to our Treasury Department, in which they favor the extension of free trade. They refer to the trade with the maritime Provinces under their system of low duties as more satisfactory. than that of Canada, and come to the conclusion, at which the legislature of New York had previously arrived and set forth in their Resolves now on file i*t Washington, that " the legislation of Canada subse- quent to tlio treaty, was subversive of its true intent and mean- ing, and tliat an isolating and exclusive policy hp.d been adopted, intended to destroy the natural effect of the treaty by heavy duties on the products the United States have to sell, and by discriminating duties and tolls imposed to exclude the United States from Canadian markets." Our Committee on Commerce conclude with a full recognition of the benefits which would 28 CANADIAN HINISmT. i| '111 flow from a just treaty and extended system of free trade between the United States and the Provinces, by which reci- procity would be not merely a name but a substance on the whole frontier, and as a substitute for the treaty recommend the Zollverein, under which more than thirty-six millions of Ger- mans freely interchange their commodities and divide foreign duties, while nearly as many Austrians are included under a more limited system. The efficient minister of finance, who is very naturally on the alert when this treaty is discussed, reviews the action of our committee in a statement to the Canadian Parliament in March, 1862. He concedes most of the facts found by our committee, but endtavors to weaken their force and sustain the treaty. Ho urges that Canada, like the United Stat(is, was obliged to raise her duties, but apparently forgets that our rise did not a£fect the great exports of Canada. He clings to the letter without regard to the spirit of the treaty shown in its preamble, and does not refer to the assur- ances given by Mr. Andrews, its chief author, and by the British minister and the officers of Canada, when the treaty was pending. It is fresh in my memory that when invited to favor the treaty I declined to do so, because the programme of the treaty did not expressly authorize us to buy the staples of Canada with the products of New England, but it is now apparent that this was a dangerous omission and that Canada has not redeemed her pledges. The minister of finance urges that Canadian duties are not as high as our own, but a duty of 20 oi* 25 per cent, is too high if it excludes our manufactures. The duty on pur clocks at Liverpool and on our drills at Calcutta were not higher, but they were just high enough to efiect tho purpose of Great Britain, the exclusion of the fabrics of the United States. Tho minister urges that tho free ports of Gaspe and Sault St. Mary are to encourage the settlers ; but the few settlers on these desert coasts re ^airo no such stimulus, and Canada in establish- ing them pays no respect to tho groat maxim of tho law — Sic utere tuo ut alienum non kedas — while benefiting by a treaty whoso express object was to make tho trade beneficial to both parties. Ho admits that the discriminating tolls and duties havo been imposed and claims the right to impose them. Ho IMPOmrATIONS BY THE ST. LAWRENCE. 29 owns his object to be to promote the direct trade hj the St. Lawrence by such measures, and avers that he has done so. He conceives this to be a laudable object and submits a table to show how large a proportion of the importations of Canada, many of which formerly came through the States, now come via the St. Lawrence. Extract from the Table of the Minister of Finance. Importation of Leading Articles into (hntida in 1861. « Wliole am't Imported Into the ProTince. Proportion Imported Tto the 8k Lawrence. Cotton goods Earthen and glass ware, . Fancy goods, . . ^.-li. Iron and hardware, '^i:»:fm^i^bib.- .i> Silks, satins and velvets, ^^:;^;^*! • Woollens, . . ,w^ .^at^vysia* •5,600,000 618,896 328,801 2,851,014 921,152 4,271,276 •5,123,076 427,788 245,419 1,943,308 875,195 4,003,077 Total,. . . . . . < •14,681,506 •12,617,928 The minister of finance thus demonstrates that eighty-six per cent, of this merchandise enters Canada via the gates of the St. Lawrence, leaving but fourteen per cent, for New York, Boston, and for American vessels, canal boats and railways. It is his province to conciliate Montreal and Quebec and propitiate Great Britain. His duties are arduous and conflicting. For the seaports of Canada he must attract the breadstuffs of the West, to give freights to their shipping and commissions to their merchants ; for them he must seek outlets to France, the maritime Prov- inces, Brazil and West Indies. With respect to Great Britain, whoso subjects have little respect for custom-houses or block- ades, he can present free ports on groat highways and duties dis- criminating in their favor. To satisfy the Upper Province and to give value to forests and agriculture, he must command the home market of the United States. If we will give him the coasting trade, he will deepen the canals and take the direct trade also 30 COASTINa TRADE. tm He will accomplish three objects if he can secure the coasting trade, and the direct trade and the home market by a single blow, but the coasting trade is not to be conceded and we must compete for the direct trade also. In his statement to Parlia- ment he protests against a Zollveroin which would sever Canada from Great Britain and cut off her imports from the British Isles. He expresses a disposition to enlarge the free list, by adding books, .implements, wooden ware and machinery, and would extend the system of free trade if such measures become necessary to preserve the treaty. He is ready to negotiate for its preservation, for he has much to lose, while there is reason to apprehend that we may struggle to revive our commerce and may ask equivalents for the future in a new negotiation. Wo have thus examined the progress, commerce and policy of Oanada, and find that she has grown rapidly in trade, wealth and population, that her annual commerce with us is fourfold its amo ant before the treaty ; that she has not thus far redeemed the pledges given for her by Lord Elgin, the British minister, to favor our productions, but has checked their importation without benefit to her own, for she still devotes herself chiefly to her forests and agriculture, canals and railways ; she has diverted some trade to the St. Lawrence, and established, some free ports, and expanded her whole commerce to $87,000,000 in 1865, of which $50,000,000 are with the United States. We find that her exports oS produce to us exceed her imports, that some shares and probably some bonds have flowed into Canada while a counter current has flowed into the States from the maritime Provinces. But if the treaty has been a boon to Canada have we not also derived some benefits from a commerce of fifty millions, three- fifths of which consist of articles of food and materials for manufacture ? Are we not led to the conclusion that the treaty has brought to us some blessings in its train ? Has not our tonnage in this trade wonderfully increased, and does it not still maintain its ascendancy ? If our imports from Canada have exceeded our exports, have not those imports ministered to our wants and swelled our exports in the most trying periods of our four years' struggle ? If we have imported horses and oats and live stock, have they not mounted and fed our cavalry and horsed our BENEFITS TO THE UNITED STATES. m 'I artillery, and aided Sheridan in his last campaigns ; and if we have sent a balance of two or three millions of specie to Canada beyond what we receive from the maritime Provinces, are we to send the products of our mines, one of our chief exports, to England only? If Frederick the Great was able successfully to contend for seven years with Austria, France, and finally with Russia, by the supplies he drew from Silesia and Saxony, have not the Provinces contributed something to our success, and have we not some pensions to pay in the Provinces ? If our exports have diminished, a part of the diminution must be ascribed to our currency and the derangement of our trade. Are we not for the moment obliged to pay in our own markets three or four profits : first, the legitimate profit ; second, a profit to cover the risk of a decline of value to spiBcie prices ; third, a profit to cover increased cost of living ; and often a fourth, from the insufficient supply caused by the fear of pro- ducers to enlarge their works wlJle labor and materials are above their true value ; and shall we not pfbduce more cheaply and change this as we return to specie ? If there are Oiiissions of our productions in the treaty, is Canada to blame for them, if she has conformed to the letter of the treaty, and may they not have been made with a wise forecast by Mr. Marcy ? ■ If the Provinces have sent us coal, wool, timber and rags, which last Canada classes among her manufactures, have they not given a stimulus to our industry, and if she has refused our return freight has not that diminished the net return upon her exports ? And will she be less friendly and less interested in our progress if she holds a few of our bonds ? Will they not be bonds of amity between us ? And now if she has drawn capital from Europe, built her canals and railways and connected th^m with our own, and is able to construct more for the trade of both countries ; if she has to-day a small surplus revenue and is able and willing to transfer some of her duties from our manufactures to foreign luxuries and to discourage illicit trade ; if she is willing to make the terms of a new treaty more beneficial than those of the last, is it our true policy to withdraw into our shell and refuse to listen to her overtures ? > - / a 82 EXPORTS AND IMPORTS OF THB MARITIME PROVINCES. 7 1 Maritimb Provinces op Great Britain. Let us now glance at the seacoast and turn from Oanada to bur commerce with the maritime Provinces. Our intercourse with these Colonies is annually increasing. They send to us large supplies of coal, lumber, fuel, gypsum, grindstones, fish and products of the fisheries, and receive in payment our breadstuffs, some manufactures, and some foreign goods. The goods we export are more valuable than those we receive, and for several years before the treaty our exports averaged in value more than twice the value of out* imports. This disparity has been reduced, but still the balance of trade is in our favor and is realiised in part from drafts on England for the proceeds of ships built in the Colonies and remittances in gold, and our citizens are engaged to a considerable extent in opening coal and gold ipines in these Provinces. Tmports and Uxportt of British Maritrne Provinces of Nova Scotia, Hew Brunswick,' Newfoundland and Prince Edwards Island, in i Commerce with the^United States. . V DATE. Export! to above Maritime Provlneca. Import!. Aggregate!. 1850, . . . 13,116,840 00 91,358,922 00 $4,475,832 00 1851, . 8,224,553 00 1,786,650 00 4,061,203 00 1852, . 2,650,184 00 1,520,830 00 4,170,404 00 1853, . 3,398,576 00 2,672,602 00 6,071,177 00 1854, . . . 4,698,771 00 2,206,021 00 6,899,792 00 1856, . . . 5,855,878 00 2,954,420 00 8,810,298 00 1856, . . . 7,519,909 00 3,222,224 00 10,742,133 00 1867, . . . 6,911,406 00 3,832,462 00 10,743,867 00 1858, . . . 5,976,494 00 4,224,948 00 10,200,442 00 1869, . . . 8,829,960 00 6,518,834 00 13,848,794 00 1860, . . . 7,602,839 00 4,989,708 00 12,392,647 00 1861, . . . 7,188,784 00 4,417,476 00 11,561,210 00 1862, . . . 7,369,906 00 4,046,843 00 11,416,748 00 1868, . . . 10,198,606 00 6,207,421 00 16,405,929 00 1864, . . . 12,323,718 00 7,947,897 00 20,276,616 00 At least ten per cent, should bo added to these imports, as the Provincial manifests usually underrate the amount of ship- ments from the Provinces, to that extent. NOVA SCOTIA COMUEBOB. The tonnage of the vessels in the trade with these Provinces arriving in the United States and clearing therefrom, in the ye. 1864, exhibits an amount of more than 1,600,000 tons, and their commerce with the United States during that year, as shown by exports and imports, was two-fifths of the amouut of our average trade with Canada, while their population already given is less than one-third that of Canada. The vessels owned by these Provinces exceed five hundred and fifty thousand tons. Were these vessels to be withdrawn from the British marine and added to our own, we should resume our maritime supremacy, notwithstanding the reduction of more than a million of tons, by sales and losses, by the depredations of the Alabama, Sea King and other cruisers. The extensive coasts, navigation and fisheries of these Colonies, make their inhabitants familiar with the sea and they can furnish at least 80,000 seamen. We have considered them in the aggregate, but let us now glance at them in detail and examine their revenue and commerce. Nova Scotia. * This Province, within one day's run of Boston, with its capital, Halifax, a great, naval station, with the coal mines of Cape Breton annexed, and prosperous, to say nothing of recently discovered gold mines, is the most important of these maritime Provinces. In 1862, Its tonnage was . - . . . 277,708 tons. Imports, . . . . i . 18,450,042 00 Exports, . . . . . . 6,646,461 00 Revenue, . . * . . . . 780,000 00 Its seamen employed in the fisheries, were in 1861, 14,522^ which is four per cent, of its entire population of 830,857. The growth of its population from 1851 to 1861, has been 19^^ per cent. The progress of its fisheries has been as follows : VMMli. BMtoi Man. 1851, 812 6,161 10,394 1861, ..... 900 8,816 14,822 the ship- Increase of men, 88 per cent. 88 8,656 8,928 84 FISHERIES. II The fish taken in its fisheries, were-— In 1851, mackerel, 100,047 bbls. ; herring, 153,200 bbls. * . 1861, « 66,108 « « 194,170 " The vessels built in this Province, were, in 1868, ........ 16,3^6 tons.^ 1861, . . . 23,634 « Our merchants who are engaged in the trade with Nova Scotia, and other British Provinces, complain of the charges for lights and pilotage, and represent that owing to the standard of measurement adopted in the Provinces, our vessels, in propor- tion to their capacity, are expected to pay more than the Provin- cial vessels ; that the packets and other small vessels, which run frequently from New England and New York to Provincial ports, require no pilots, but are obliged to pay for them. And that each of our vessels is required to pay light dues for a year in the Provincial ports, although it may make but a single voyage. 's ^ \ In our ports, no charge for lights is exacted, and it is just that this be reciprocated, and that no charge be made for pilot- age to regular packets, and no clwge for anchorage or trans- shipment to our fishermen. A portion of the shipping of Nova Scotki, is held by citizens of the Provinces, on American account, under the British flag, and intelligent merchants compute that ©ne-seventh of the tonnage of the Provinces, is thus held for our countrymen. It is not improbable that several hundred thousand tons of United States shipping, have, during the war been registered in Great Britain 'and her Colonies, to reduce msurance, in addition to all that have been sold, and I would respectfully suggest to the Department, the policy of passing a , special Act, allowing vesp Is that have been thus registered, to be registered again in tiyj ports of the United States, upon , paying a moderate dulr, to be applied to the benefit of the orphans and widows of those who defended our flag. This would do no injustice to our ship-builders, and would take from rthe roll of England and restore to our own, a part of the ton- .nage of which her cruisers have deprived our nation. Would it be well to exclude .such vessels and compel the owners to .sell at. low rates to the English, or risk tlieir property ? / NEW BRUNSWICK. 35 The average of duties in Nova Scotia is not far from 10 per cent. The coal mines of Nova Scotia now produce about half a million of tons annually. Two at Pictou and Sydney are held by an English company. The others, producing nearly half the coal, are held principally by citizens of the United States. . Several valuable gold mines, in which the quartz veins yield from 2 to 11 ounces per ton, are w6rkcd in this Province by citizens of the Uhited States ; some have become profitable and a half of one has been recently sold for $500,000. New Brunswick. This Province is but an extension of the State of Maine, along the Bay of Fundy. In 1862 its Exports were Exports to United States, Imports, . . . . . Imports from United States, . Revenue, . . . , In 1860 its vessels built Tonnage, . . * . Population, . $3,846,538 00 889,416 00 6,199,701 00 2,690,703 00 668,197 00 158,240 " 41,003 tons. to " 252,047 The ships built and sold nearly sufficed, to make up th^ diflfer- ence, between exports and imports. The duties in New Brunswick, average less than 16 per cent.* Until a recent period there has been in this Colony a strong opposition to the union of the Provinces under one govern- ment. But this Province has been conciliated by a promise that it may draw for the general revenue a sum which will exceed $200,000 annually, for a contract to aid a railway from the St. John River, to the lino of Maine, to meet one from Bangor, one of the two links that remain to complete the chain from Halifax to Kansas and Texas. The Province has agreed to advance $10,000 a mile to aid this lino as it passes through New Brunswick. It has also a mine of albertine, rich in mineral oil, which yields annually 15,000 to 20,000 tons and returns very large profits. This is held by our citizens. * Letter of E. Allison, Esq., Nor. 16, 1865. u . te PRINCE EDWARDS ISLANC A¥fD NEWFOUNDLAND. ly. Prince Edwards Island. -^ This fertile island derives importance from its harbors and position on the borders of the fishery for mackerel. The fleets of fishermen take in its vici;;ity a large proportion of their best fish; and if the United States should secure nothing else beyond the rights retained under the convention of 1818, the right to fish close to its shores, would be of great importance to our fisheries. A line of steamers is now established between this island and Boston, and large importations of fish and oats are made from it annually. In 1861 its Population was Imports, Exports, Vessels built, 8,045 tons, value, 80,657 $1,046,750 00 815,570 00 216,600 00 I Twenty-five yeaxs since a single schooner could have trans- ported all the goods, passing between this fertile island and the United States, but now two steam packets run between it and Boston, making frequent passages through the Gut of Ganso. Large shipments of oats and other produce are made to Boston and New York, and many products interchanged, and large supplies furnished our fishermen. At least half the crop of oats is shipped to Englrnd, and were wo to impose heavy duties on them, the whole surplus of the Province would proba- bly take that direction to the injury of our trade. Doubtless, any considerable duties on oats and barley would send a large portion of those crops from Canada to Great Britain, under the decline of prices that would attend these great staples of Canada. This fertile island was settled by the French, as a garden for their great fortress at Louisburg. Duties 10 per cent. * V Newfoundland. This Province has a sterile soi} and brief, cloudy summer, but has for centuries been renowned foi its fisheries, which comprise the cod, seal, salmon, herring and mackerel, although the two first are the principal. W-' ^iftA^m vancouvee's island. H^'^- nd ets est ►nd * to . Dur bhis are ,557 I 00 I 00 ) 00 •ans- Ithe and mso. tston arge p of eavy iba- for but mse two. Near its coast lie the Grand Banks, enveloped in almost cease- less fogs, xxom the evaporation caused by the confluence of the Gulf Stream with the icebergs and ice currents of the north. Here cod abound in water 30 to 50 fathoms deep, on a bottom abounding in shellfish and frequented by small fish in great abundance. God are taken from boats near the shore, and herrings, early in the year are taken in vast numbers in seines, and many vessels load with them as bait for our fishermen. In 1862 the Imports were . . . . ^4,028,000 00 4,684,000 00 87,000 $452,000 00 122,638 Exports, . Tonnage, . Revenue, . Population, As early as 1517, 50 sail of vessels fished on the banks. Duties 10 per cent. Vancouver's Island. This large and fertile island, with a soil and climate resem- bling that of Ireland, is situated opposite British Columbia. It has become the chief naval station of England on the Pacific coast, and occupies a position on that coast with reference to California, like that Nova Scotia holds on the Atlantic, with reference to the States of New England. Its chief city is Vic- toria, near the spacious harbor of Esquimault, and the principal imports from British Columbia, and the exports of its gold, are made from this city. In Barclay Sound, a London firm manufactures annually, 20 million feet of timber ; and in 1863, 22,000 tons of coal were sent to California from valuable coal mines of Nanaimo. In 1868, the exports from Victoria to our States on the Pacific, were . . • . . Imports — From our Pacific States, England, Sandwich Islands, other places on Pacific Ocean, . Tonnage entered and cleared, . $2,985,170 10 $2,280,601 00 1,482,521 00 118,486 00 101,294 00 $8,877,802 00 . 98,182 I I Hi I I i' 88 BRITISH COLUMBIA AND BRITISH FISHERIES. yi'Ssii^^iliV'V-'Vf " British Columbia. The chief settlements and mines of this territory are in the vicinity of Frazer's River. For climate and soil it compares favorably with Scotland, and with respect to fisheries, the rivers and outlets supply abundance of salmon. Its revenue, drawn principally from mines, annually exceeds half a million of dollars. The British Provincial Fisheries. It is important for our government, when adjusting a treaty which bears on our fisheries, to learn what encouragement is given by other nations to their fisheries in the same waters. Great Britain for many years paid large bounties to her fisher- men, but of late years has substituted for them what is more beneficial, — a system of light duties. The colonists of Great Britain enjoy great natural advantages. The fish are upon their coasts. Without loss of time or long voyages, like those made by the mariners of Franco and the United States, t/vov : j; pursue their avocations upon their farms; and wheu wind, weather and fish invite, can launch their small boats from the shore, and return weekly and often daily to their families, and dry or pack their fish upon their own land. Great Britain has established ports for free trade upon their coasts, and duties less than one-fourth of those we have been compelled to impose. Remissions, low duties and natural advantages confer benefits on the Provincial of twice the amount of the bounty of $4 per ton which the United States grant to our fisheries to educate mariners. The best estimate of the product of these Provincial fisheries which I find accessible, is the report of Arthur Harvey Esq., statistical clerk in the finance department, Quebec. It is based upon the census tables of the several Provinces for 1800 and 1801. ■}':■■ Value of Fish caughtylSQO. Newfoundland (principally cod,) Nove Scotia (cod, mackerel, herring,) New Brunswick (cod, muckoiH)!, herring, ale- wives and "linko,) ...... Prince Edwards Island (cod, herring, mackerel,) Canada estimate, ' $4,440,000 00 2,602,000 00 888,385 00 272,582 00 700,000 00 $8,862,917 00 FRENCH FISHERIES. 89 Theso fisheries are gradually increasing. The duty on most articles used in this fishery is but one per cent. The French Fisheries. . . , France, two centuries since, held Acadia, and controlled New- foundland. Her great object was to secure the fisheries, which she considered" a nursery of seamen, and essential to her power. To insure their safety she expended five millions of dollars upon Louisburg ; and her fisheries more than a century since were estiiuatod to produce one million quintals annually. On the 20th of December, 1850, when the law which granted bounties to the sea fisheries was expiring, the French Ministers of Marino and Colonies submitted a report to the National Assembly, in which they gave the statistics of the cod-fishery, and stated that the average number of seamen engaged in tfiem from 1841 to 1850 was 11,500, and the average bounty paid annually was $780,000, jor 3,900,000 francs, equivalent to f GT^j/'jj for each seaman ; and that Franco trains up in this manner able and hardy seamen for her navy, who would cost the nation much more if they were trained to the sea on ships of war. Their statements, accompanied by a draft of a law to renew the bounties, were referred to a commission ; and its chairman, May 3, 1851, made a report in which he states that the commis- sion had examined delegates from all the ports engaged 'n the fisheries, with the papers of a former commission, and those of the Council of State ; and, in coixurrence with the Directors of the Customs and the Ministers of Marine and Commerce, reports : "That the intervention of the State in the form of aids and bounties can bo justified only by considerations of general and public iuiorcst ; " that such industrial employments as can prosper at tho expense of the public treasury only should not exist ; that although tho industry exerted in tho fisheries and tho commercial activity that resulted from it gave employment to a largo class of peoi)lo, this was a secondary consideration ; that tho encouragement given to tho great fisheries was not an exclusive protection or favor to any one form of industry ; that tho law they had tho honor to i)roposo was not a commercial but a maritimo law, conceived for tho advancement of the naval power of tho State ; that Franco, situate on three of tho most V 4l|i FRENCH BOUNTIES. ^ important seas of Europe, n-ust continue a maritime power ; that treaties wliich had become inevitable had robbed her of her colonies ; that coal belongs to the English, and cotton to the Americans ; and the shipments of sugar were growing less and less. ^ The great fisheries still remain ; on them repose our hopes ; and to preserve them wo must continue the encouragement we have given them, even at periods when commercial and colonial prosperity infinitely superior to that now existing multiplied our shipping a^d furnished abundance of seamen. That the fisher- ies gave employment to a great number of men, whom a labori- ous navigation, under climates of extreme rigor, rapidly formed to the profession of the sea. No school can compare with it in preparing so many and so welJ 'xT the services of the navy. That if the bounties on expOi.^ Av vere stopped, an insignificant number of vessels would L. juippcd ; that the annual returns averaged forty- four millions kilogrammes of dry fish (or one million quintals,) of which three-eights wore exported under bounties " on expor- tation." The law continues the bounty of 50 francs, or |10 per man, engaged in the deep sea fisheries and establishes a bounty of 20 francs or $4 for each French quintal of 221 lbs. avoirdu- pois exported to America. This is equal to $2 per cwt. Tlio oflicial tables annexed to this report, give the average number of tons of the vessels of French fishermen employed from 1842 to 1847. '■ Tom. On the coast of Newfoundland, , \ ♦ , '. 21,195 At St. Pierre and Miquclon, . . . . . 657 At Grand Banks, . . . . ' . . . 5,816 At Grand Banks without drying, .... 18,703 At Iceland, . 7,794 Total, 49,165 Average from 1835 to 1839, 63,456 Number of vessels Ist period, 416 ; 2nd period, 889. Since the jmssago of this law, the French fisheries havo materially improved. Larger and superior vessels are used, / OUR FISHERIES. m averaging 157 tons, or twice the size of our vessels. They carry 20 men each. France had in these fisheries, In 1858, 492 vessels ; 77,150 tons ; 15,280 men. for During this year she paid in bounties, $735,000 equal to each ton in the trade, while our rate was but $4 per ton. The product of her fisheries was $3,500,000, and she exported in that year to the United States 41,151 quintals. The French Dictionary of Commerce published at Paris three years since, remarks that " the Americans cannot continue their fisheries against the English, and against the French aided by a bounty, without a bounty also." The increase in the French fisheries since 1851 has averaged 8 per cent, per annimi. • The United States Fisheries. The importance of these fisheries has not been appreciated by the Middle and Western States, although they have rendered such important aid tx) our nation, both in the wars of 1776 and 1812, and more recently from 1861 to 1865, by men trained amid ice and fogs of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and upon boisterous seas to naval service. I have adverted to the services of these trained seamen in former wars, but many of them have in the last four years evinced their ability and endurance by maintaining for years, through storm and sunshine, summer and winter, days and nights, a blockade of 8,000 miles of coast, that Great Britain considered impossible, and by the capture of 1,500 prizes. At Port Royal with wooden walls alone, they assailed and captured strong and well armed fortresses. At New Orleans they pushed aside the fire-rafts, and with their ships festooned with chain cables, assailed successfully both forts and iron-clads. They were among those who run the gftuntlct of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, and opened the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers, and manned the decks at Mobile, when Farragut, who fought with them in 1812 on the Essex, lashed himself to the mast. The history of the past teaches us their value in the future. The American fisheries are not only the chief nurseries for tho 42 AMERICAN TONNAGE. mariners and petty officers of our navy, but they are the schools from which spring the most able and enterprising mates, cap- tains and merchants who conduct the foreign commerce of the nation. The deep sea fisheries of the United States, at the present moment, although oppressed by heavy duties; although deprived of a part of the home market, — are still alive, and their returns for 1865 exclusive of the whale fishery, are more than the whole returns of the British North American fisheries. The tonnage engaged in the United States fisheries has been as follows : — DATE. Tons tn the Cod Fishery. In the Mackerel Flsherr. Aggregate 1802, 1863, 1804, '122,863 117,290 103,742 80,590' 51,019 55,494 203,459 168,809 159,236 I The return of fish and oil from this tonnage for 1862 con- siderably exceeded fourteen million dollars — drawn from the rich pastures of the deep. Wo have not exact returns of the fish or oil landed on our shores, for these are not recorded in our oOTicial reports ; but we have proof that in 1802 and down to the present hour the trade has paid fair profits beyond outfits, repairs, insurance and other disbursements, and that these average more than $80 per ton for the vessels and boats in service, or more than $13,000,000. The aggregate produce of the French, British and United States fisheries on the coasts of America at this time, must exceed $25,000,000, of which, about one-half belongs to the United States, and our proportion of the men in the service, averages at least 25,000. Our conclusions are drawn alike from the tonnage employed, the men required to navigate it, and the necessary expense of sailing the vessels, and from evidence taken.* The progress of the American fisheries, down to 1851, * During tho present season many Beverly fishermen have averaged more than 12i quintals of dry flsh to ho ton, caught in less than months. Tho present vnluo of such fish exceeds $S the quintal. PROCEEDS AND VALUE OF FISHERIES. m is well recounted by W. A. Wellman, Esq., late Assistant Col- lector of Boston, in Senate Document, No. 112, for 1852, to which I refer. The Treaty of 1783 expressly stipulated that the people of the United States shall continue to enjoy unmolested the right to take fish of every kind on the banks and on the coasts, and on the bays, harbors and creeks of the British dominions in America, and under its provisions the fisheries were revived and rapidly increased. A bounty was allowed on the exportation of fish as a draw- back of the duty on salt which subsequently took the form of the present allowance. . , Until the embargo of 1808 fell with crushing weight upon the industry of the North, the fisheries grew rapidly. During the embargo and the war, when bounties were dis- continued, the export declined to less than $100,000 in 1814. But the navy was manned and enabled to cope successfully with the frigates of England. The Treaty of 1814 was silent as to the fisheries and wo resumed our original rights, and the bounties were renewed, but our commissioners in 1818 having imprudently renounced our fight to fish within three miles of the shores, harbors and bays of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Capo Breton and Prince Edward Island, and the Imperial Government having subsequently imdertaken to draw a line from headland to headland and exclude us from the bays of Chaleurs, Fundy and the Strait of Canso, and to seize and con- fiscate our vessels, our fisheries, which had gradually progressed and reached 145,000 tons, again receded and became nearly stationary from 1838, until negotiations for a treaty were com- menced in 1851. . . V The tonnage then begftn to improve, and continued progres- sive until 1862, as appears by the following table : — Tonnoffe of the United States Fisheries. *' 1851, . 129,000 1857, . 147,000 1852, . 175,000 1860, . 163,000 1853, . 169,000 1861, . 181,000 1854, . 137,000 1862, . 203,000 1855, . 126,000 1863, . 168,000 1856, . 188,000 1864, . 159,000 f^' /r 44 TONNAOB. / The trade culminates with the return of 203,000 tons. It has been reduced by the high duty on salt and outfits. But aided by the high prices of the present year and increased demand it is recoTcring, and will, if properly sustained by Government and freed from oppressive taxes, probably again become pro- gressive. It suffers for the moment a temporary check from the duties on salt consumed, which have been as follows, by official returns : DATS. Duties on Salt Coiunir.id in the United SUtee, etaiefljr In UkO Fisheries. Bemlsslons of Duties termed Boontles. Seamen In Flsheriei. 1859, 1860, 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, 9190,965 00 210,881 00 194,300 00 418,084 00 1,211,997 00 887,003 00 9426,962 00 458,894 00 467,&•;■ -v." ^y-.^v-i;. • - - ■ -. i.'K.^ '.■■ -< .;'^.'j- 46 WHAT IS TO BE DONE? France gives a bounty to her fisheries, to sustain her naval power. , / ^i : Nature gives a bounty to the Provinces, in their proximity to the fishing grounds. The policy of England cooperates with nature, by remitting duties on all the fisheries require. This the French term pro- tection. This is better than bounties. And we, who have both distance and . adverse influences to counteract, impose duties on hull, rigging and sails, on chains, cables and anchors, on seines, lines and fish-hooks, on tea, sugar and cofiee, on nearly everything the seaman eats, drinks or wears. When these, too, were at the highest, we have, by change of measure- ment, reduced one-fourth the drawback we have given for the last fifty years, in the shape of a bounty or allowance of four dollars per ton, and while we diminish it to one-fourth the rate paid by Franco, and import her dry fish at a duty of fifty cents per quintal, after they have drawn a bounty of fourfold that amount, we continue a tax of eighteen cents per 100 pounds, or more than 200 per cent, on prime cost of salt, a most oppressive burden on our fisheries. ../ , i*^ , , .:.t j When we consider what the fisheries have done for our com- merce and our country, and reflect how cheap and useful is the food they furnish, indispensable on certain days to Roman Catholics, and renovating to all, as Agassiz states, from the phosphorus it contains; when we reflect, too, upon the great market the fisheries furnish for the beef, pork and flour of the West, the question may well arise, — does the nation deal fairly or wisely with its fisheries? They consume at least 75,000 barrels of beef, pork and flour, annually, according to the computations of the fishermen, while the wives and children of those fishermen, doubtless, consume a much larger amount. Whether we treat or not, the duties on salt and necessaries should be remitted, and the fishermen protected. , . We have thus taken a brief but comprehensive glance at the inland commerce with Canada, the trade with the maritime Provinces and the fisheries; and the question recurs, What is to bo done? Are we to, go back, with contiguous and growing Provinces, more populous than the United States in 1783, to a system of ret&liation and restricted commerce, to ports closed a^ they wore before 1830, except during the embargo, when Eng- /':! BOUNTIES. 47 land opened them? — are we to come to blows with her for rights won by the sword in the war of the Revolution, which improvident commissioners have impaired or put in jeopardy, or shall we make a treaty ? We must either risk our mackerel fishery, treat, or annex the Provinces. We may not be ready for the latter, and can offer more inducements and attractions at a future day, but we are in a strong position to negotiate. Shall we try negotiation or duties restrictive of commerce? Lord North tried restriction and coercion, and they cost him the Colonies. Let us pursue a different policy. Let us treat the Provinces as friends and patrons, as valuable customers, and if they join us let them come as friends ; we desire no unwilling associates. Thus far the Provinces, and more especially Canada, ? .v^e found reciprocity teeming with benefits. It is to them eminently beneficial ; without it their agriculture and commerce must lan- guish, and their lumber, coal, fish, canals and railways probably decline in value. We can properly demand, and it seems to me they must and will grant terms that will satisfy our country. It would be most unwise for Great Britain, with $3,000,000,000 annually afloat, on foreign voyages and in her coastwise com- merce, to risk a collision with our fishermen, and the war to which it would in all probability lead, in the present state of public feeling in this country.* ;■ ^ r Navigation of the St. Lawrence and Ship Canals to the Sea. There is another subject in which the West takes a deep interest, which was discussed at length before the convfention at Detroit, and should command the attention of the com- missioners who negotiate a treaty. In the language of the Resolution adopted unanimously by the Boards of Trade and commercial representatives of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, and fifteen other large cities, " the treaty should include the free navigation of the St. Lawrence and other rivers of British North America, with stich improvements of the rivers and enlargement of the canals as * Will it be the policy of Great Britain to allow 88 milliojis of our people inured to war, to contrast much longer her apathy in the cose of the Alabama with her alacrity in the case of the Fenians and Jamaica negroes ? 48 NAVIGATION TO THE SEA. shall render them adequate for the requirements of the West in communicating With the ocean." > The West, with its soil of exhaustless fertility, stimulated by the progress of art, finds all its outlets insufiicient and its gran- aries overflowing. The enlarged canals of New York, the railways of our great seaports, prove inadequate. It requires Lake St. Clair to be deepened and ship canals to be constructed for large steamers, to enable it to send its freight without breaking bulk, both to the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. In the discussion at Detroit the Provincials urged the import- ance of a direct route to Liverpool to a market, which in ordi- nary years absorbs breadstuffs to the amount of jB 26,000,000, and to a country ready with low duties to send any quantity of manufactures in exchange. Other gentlemen proposed to send flour and provisions by this route to the West Indies and South America, and receive back sugar and coffee in return. New York and Canada both favored the opening of a ship canal from the St. Lawrence into Lake Champlain; other States urged the importance of lines from Green Bay or Lake Superior ^ 'he Mississippi and the enlargement of the canal from Lake Mi n to the Mississippi. i» The United States and the Provinces are alike interested in these measures, and it is respectfully suggested that they should be embraced in the treaty. At the present time the Erie Canal admits no vessels exceed- ing two hundred and twenty-four tons, tho St. Lawrence Canals, with small locks and ten feet water, are restricted to three hun- dred tons, while the Welland admits vessels of four hundred tons, drawing nine feet only. The West, through Mr. Joy, of Detroit, asks for a depth and width sufficient for vessels of one thousand five hundred tons, of sufficient draft to navigate the ocean safely, and for such vessels twelve feet will be required. Through the six months of sum- mer and autumn the rim from Montreal can be made to Liver- pool with dispatch — the distance is less than the distance from New York. It would be reasonablS to ask Great Britain to perfect that por- tion of the route which lies between Lake Ontario and Montreal. She ought also to be called upon to aid in deepening Lake St. m\Wi CANALS, ''.irnf.'k -* '/.M'tri' ■• i # Clair, for it will benefit the commerce of both countries. She has proposed to make a ship canal from Lachine to Lake Cham- plain, which may bo effected for three to four millions, end carry- large vessels laden with the cereals and lumber of the West to Burlington and Whitehall ; and such a step would induce New York to enlarge her Champlain Canal, and thus carry large steamers to the deep waters of the Hudson. d i^^'r?*.- - While these steps are appropriate for Canada, the United States might stipulate to aid in deepening St. Clair, in enlarg- ing the Mich'.gan Canal, and to build a ship canal on her own territory around the Falls of Niagara with a depth of twelve to fifteen feet and a capacity for vessels of one thousand five hun- dred tons. They could annually apply two or three millions to these great objects of national, and more tlian national importance, and in a few years they would be accomplished. The St. Lawrence route would relieve the existing canals and railways, and the route by Lake Champlain would compete for the direct trade to Europe and supply our Eastern seaports, while the Michigan Canals would ..ttraot the commerce of the South and the West Indies. It is proper also to remark that a very valuable suggesjtion as to these public works has been made by one of the ministers of Canada. It is that they should be made neutral in case of war, and that all vessels and' prop- erty of both nations passing through the same shall be exempt from seizure. ^^-^ ;• . -v^^Piis . h fri. .„ Provision would thus be made both for the Provinces, the West, the So\ith and the East, and the great home market of the East is not to be forgotten. The Provincials, when presenting to the West the market of Great Britain for breadstuffs, urged as an argument for a cheap and direct route that we should meet there some competitors, and the following table was submitted by G. H. Perry, C. E., of Canada West, viz. :— ?>' s*^^; !^ ■ <; Percentage of breadstufis imported into Great Britain from, — Russia, . Prussia, . Mechlenburg, . Hanse Towns, Franco, . 7 ,,<■ ■: , ■■• --,_, »f'xte->»;^ ff: • t> ■ t * < 19^ per cent. 8 « 4 « 6^ « 50 SOUTHERN OUTliET FOR ST. LAWRENCE. ■kl-^.'. 5i] per cent. H « n Hi <( • 2J a Turkey, . Egypt, . United States, Denmark, Other countries, These prove his case, but he omitted to state that while we should divide the profits with others abroad, and find prices less than in former days, there was a home market in our Eastern and Central States where $2,000,000,000 of domestic manufac- tures were exchanged for the products of agriculture, to which easy access might be had by the placid, clear and safe naviga- tion of Lake Champlain, and th,e railways that radiate from . Oswego and Ogdensburg, Lake Champlain and the Hudson. With these improvements made, all the Provinces and the States would bo interested in the completion of the Northern Railway from Lake Superior and the Mississippi across the Bed River of the Noi th to the Pacific, and the growth of the West would still give a large traffic to the canals of New York. The propellers on their way down the lakes would rarely take fuel for more than two or three d^ys' consuiT>ption, and on their arrival a( the ports of Montreal or New York would land there portions or the whole of their cargoes for distribu- tion, and replace them with coal for a fortnight's steaming and freight to Europe. Let us ^ve the St. Lawrencd a Southern outlet.* In case the old treaty expires, there are those who desire to place heavy duties on the exports of Canada. They urge that she gave her sympathies to our foes and allowed them to organize and assail us across the frontier. That nature has interposed our country between Canada and the sea. That we should avail ourselves of our position and draw a revenue from her commerce. That her natural market was our homo market, that her Provi;ices wore nearer to the seats of our commerce and manufactures, than our Western States. That hor lands, forests and niincs depended for their value in our markets. That wo had incurred debts to preserve the latter, and if Canada is to use them iho should, like our States, contribute to the cost. \ 1/ i.i "> 8c* Appendix, pagt : DUTIEO. m That she could easily do so, as she had access across the lakes to our canals and railways, and that under our treaty her animals and coarse grains were worth more at Kingston or Toronto, than ours at the West. That the nations of the old world coin their natural advantages into money. That Russia, France, Holland and Great Britain in her East India possessions, impose duties on the exports that they monopolize, and exact tribute from other countries. But may it not be urged that some allowance is to be made for Colonies like Canada struggling to reach the ocean, to break the icy fetters that bind them half the year, anxious to obtain favor from England and rival the improvements of the great Republic on their borders, and to meet the interest of a debt which seemed to us immense before we had contracted our own ? And may we not ascribe the tone of the frontiers to the emissaries of secession and the leaders of the London press ? Would it be wise to incur the ill will of a Province whose frontier for three thousand miles borders on our own ? Would it bo politic to stimulate illicit trade at a time when we require high duties to meet our engagements ? Again, let mo ask, is it desirable for us to have a Province on our borders with property depreciated and trade languishing — and should we not participate in its prosperity, if we give life to its commorce— or should we divert business from our canals and railways to a new and circuitous route across New Bruns- wick ? And if New England and New York lie between Canada and the sea, docs not Canada lie between \ib and some of the States of the West ? If the revenue of Canada now enables her to recede from hor duties on our products ; if sho bocj that they give no commensurate benefit ; if sho has inexhaustible forests and fields on our borders ; if under the guidance of England sho has not yet learned to manufacture largely and is willing to exchange her staples for the products of a country like ours, more advanced in tlio arts ; if our manufactures bid fair soon to overtake our agriculture, — may we not profit by a fair ex- change and may we not forgot the errors of the past and welcome the friendship of the future. It is doubtless desirable for Canada to roach our homo market and to gain a direct route, summer 52 CANADIAN EXPORTS. and winter, to the sea, but she has open to her half the year the route of the St. Lawrence, connected by a series of canals and railways, with the lakes. And is it our policy to turn all her trade that way, or through the wilds of New Brunswick ? These are important questions. Canada sends to us under the treaty many animals. Among these in 1863 were 19,836 horses and 21,665 cattle, and 71,000 sheep, which aided us in finishing the war. The aggregate value of all such animals imported from Canada was last year, more than $5,000,000, but we send her beef and pork to the amount of nearly $2,000,000 and she exports beef to Europe. Should we impose heavy duties on horses, sheep pelts or^ wool, would she not send cattle in their place ? If we iax the cattle heavily, would she send the animals across the border, or ship their beef to Great Britain and compete with our beef in the English market ? Many of her chief products now stand upon an equipoise. We send her cheese and she sends us butter, but more than half her export of butter is to England. Two-thirds of her surplus peas and beans go to Europe less than one-third cross our lines, and the lumber we exclude by an oneroits tax might meet ours in South America or the West Indies. Canada- might thus suffer, but our canals, railways and commerce, would partake of her losses. Again, we have a largo manufacture of wool, which had risen from $66,000,000 in 1860 to $122,000,000 in 1864, requiring 152,000,000 of pounds, nearly half of which was imported, and Canada supplies us with 5,500,000 pounds of combing wool the present year, of a quality we do not produce, but which we require for our new fabrics for our moussclino delaines, alpaccas and bunting. In the recent very able address of J. L. Hayes, Esq., to the National Association of Wool Manufacturers, the above facts are stated. It is also stated: "That in 1860 wo imported $15,000,000 of worsteds, principally from England. Wo made ouly $3,000,000. To replace the English worsteds wo have nbKolutuly no raw material and depend wholly on the Leicester and Cotswold wools of Canada." Tho success of tlio Lowell Manufacturing Company in fabricating alpaca goods from BREADSTUFFS. '■fM: \ the 1 facts )rtod lado Ihavo 38tor l)WoU from Canada lustre wools has demonstrated that the wool does not deteriorate. The Canada wool has been found equal to the best English lustre wool imported for comparison. The free wool of Canada has been an inestimable favor to our worsted manufacturers. It does not compete with the productions of our own farmers, as we raise little more than 200,000 pounds of long wool, while Canada consumes 800,000 pounds of our clothing wool annually. It is not possible that our production of long wool can keep up with the demand. Would it be wise, while we are competing with Eui'ope for the production of $16,000,000 of worsteds, to check the introduction of the long and silky fleeces produced in the cold and moist climate of Canada, and send that staple abroad to aid our rivals ? In four years Canada can furnish all we require for the $15,000,000 of worsteds. There are few of the great staples of the Provinces it would be wise to tax heavily, should the chance be afforded. It wou d be unwise to tax the minor articles, and most unwise to tax those which would be diverted by a duty. The field of inquiry is limited to the great staples of the Provinces — wheat, oats, barley, coal, lumber and fish, and, possibly, horses. "We may dispose at once of wheat ; Canada sends us the flour of her white who it, and annually takes in return an equivalent in tlie red wl "at of the TV est, most ol which she consumes. Tliis i ''air mtercbange. As respects the flour " in transitu,** eacl ^ invites to its ports ' shipment to Europe. With respect to oats, the production i '-nnada is immense, having risen in 1860 to thirty-eight millioub uf busheb . and our importation of oats from Canada was, in 1864, over nii ) millions of bushels. But, under our system of free < ule, hall the oats exported from Prince Edwards Island seek > market of Groat Britain ; and a duty exceeding four cents per bushel, would probably either diminish the cultivation in Caiai] or send a largo portion to Europe. Barley might jHJsslbly bear a duty of five or seven ish flag, to avoid the cruisers of the enemy, to register them again under our own, and at the present time, when wo are suffering from the loss of so many vessels, and coal freights between Philadelphia and Boston have risen from $2 to $4.75 per ton, it is an important question, whether we might not admit, at least for a brief period, a supply of vessels from the Colonics, at a duty not exceeding $5 per ton, without injuiy to the ship-builders. This would replenish our stock of vessels and alleviate the charges for coal, now selling at $15 per ton in the ports of Maine and Massachusetts. I am not, however, prepared to recommend such a step without further considera- tion. - • It will bo difficult to adjust all pending questions without a treaty, and such a treaty should secure to us the right of imposing taxes on articles imported from the Provinces, when ;7Q impose taxes on the same articles produced at home. 60 EinORATION FROM THB PBOVINOES. The treaty, too, must be one of equivalents, so that no other nations may olaim a reduction of duty under any agreement to place them on the footing of the most favored nation. If we exclude our chief importations from distant nations from the free list, and require equivalents, they will see no favor in the treaty, and the treaty might provide that any article for which such claim shall be established may be stricken from the free list. There are a few opponents of a treaty who fear that a new treaty with the Provinces may tempt our citizens to cross the lines and establish their mills and manufactures in Canada. It is doubtless true that we at this moment tax production and locomotion most severely; that the amount of our impost$.> on manufactures and freight, with the state of our currency, deter our inhabitants from building ships, steamers, mills and houses, of which there is, at this moment, a great deficiency. But the return to specie payments is already foreshadowed, and there is reason to hope that the able commissioners who have, with indefatigable industry, examined the sources of our revenue, will soon recommend the removal of all charges on production, will liberate entirely our coal and iron from internal duties, and adopt the recommendation of our President, in his late message to Gongressj to remove all taxes upon railroads. If they throw, as we may well presume, half our taxes upon cotton, liquors and tobacco, and the greater portion of the residue upon the luxuries we import, if they tax licenses, stamps, petroleum, lumber, banks and dividends, the taxes upon our farms and mills will be so light, and our climate, soil and capital be found so much superior to those of the Provinces, that we shall tempt their citizens to emigrate.* If, under the treaty, our commerce with the Provinces has, in twelve years, increased threefold, and in that commerce the tonnage arriving and departing from our ports exceeds 6,600,000 tons, if in this tonnage we have the preponderance, if our country has made rapid progress both in population and wealth, is there reason to dread the operation of a new treaty more favorable to our own productions than the treaty expiring? * It ia report«;d thiit out of 20,000 omlgnmU from Earopo to Canada in I860, 18,000 have come into the United States . ■■:T^ V. COMMISSIONEBS. 61 has, lethe ),000 our |alth, lore 1665, GOMMISSIONEBS. The commissioners to negotiate a new Treaty of Reciprocity with Great Britain, should be men who are conversant with commerce, the fisheries and treaties, and men who will leave no questions for the future. We owe to John Adams, of Massachusetts, the incorruptible patriot, the founder of our navy, the treaty of 1783, which secured the fisheries. Although his coUeagues were lukewarm, he appreciated their value ; and although his native State was exhausted, and owed debts that exceeded the value of her property, he told the British commissioners he would fight on until our rights were admitted. His treaty preserved them entire, as our fathers held them. At the Treaty of Ghent, in 1814, the treaty of '83 was considered the basis of our rights — ^the quitclaim deed of Great Britain. Our commissioners took the ground that we should consider all the rights it granted established, and Great Britain acquiesced. But a few years afterwards Gre^t Britain denied those original and fundamental rights we had won by the sword and treaty, which she had once abandoned, and then recognized as our own ; she told us we had resigned them by the Treaty of Ghent. She molested our fishermen and denied them shelter in her ports. We were obliged to treat again. A convention was made with her by Rush and Gallatin in 1818, and to secure shelter, and under the pressure of unjust claims, they resigned our right to fish on certain shores, within three miles of the coast, inlets, harbors and bays, stipulating that we might enter those inlets, harbors and bays for shelter from storms or for repairs. For many years Great Britain acquiesced in our construction, but subsequently set up a new construction, and seized our vessels, molested our vessels, and our fisheries, instead of keeping pace with our national progress, actually declined a third, and we were thus com- pelled to fight or make another treaty — the Treaty oi Reciprocity. The value of our fisheries was appreciated in the early days of the Republic. The " Federalist " speaks of our three great rights — the right to the lakes, the right to the rivers, the right to the fisheries. 62 CONCUBBENT LEGISLATION. It has been suggested that we may regulate our intercourse with the Provinces by concurrent legislation and dispense with a treaty, and this suggestion must be treated with respect, as it might enable us to alter our duties. But how are we to legislate in concurrence with five different Provinces, each of which may repeal to-morrow the act of to-day ? — ^Provinces whose interests are different and sometimes conflicting? — ^who may require months, and possibly years, for their union unless we accelerate it by refusing a treaty? One is absorbed in the fisheries, another in agriculture, another in commerce and mines, another in lumber and ship-building, while a fifth has little to do with mines, and still less with fisheries, but is cievoted to canals, railways, forests and agriculture. One cares little for the three mile line which encircles some Provinces ; others deem it important, and the great shoals of mackerel may cross the line of three Provinces in a day. One Province controls the mouth of the St. John, which flows through the land of Maine and Massachusetts ; another the St. Lawrence. One has free ports on our borders, and no charges for lights or anchorage ; others oppressive charges for lighthouses, pilotage and anchorage. With proper reservations in a new treaty we may provide for future duties, or for the termination of the treaty itself on six months' notice ; and if England perseveres in her refusal to do us justice, and compels us to make reprisals on her commerce for injuries done to our own, and war ensues, it will terminate the treaty, unless we neutralize the rivers of the Provinces. If we have other questions to settle with England, will not the adjustment of one pave the way for the adjustment of all? British Treaties. , By the Treaties of 1788 r.nd 1814 the boundary line was to run from the source of the ilt. Croix, to the north-west angle of New Brunswick, then Nova Scotia, and thence by the highlands that divide the waters runnliginto the sea, from those that flow into the St. Lawrenc^. But Great Britain subsequently discovered that these high- lands came near Quebec, and a distinguished surveyor told me at Quebec in 1888, that England would never allow us to come 80 near their chief fortress and the great highway of f I BRITISH TREATIES. 63 Canada. Such was the tesult. England could never find the north-Mast angle of New Brunswick, although the line between Canada and that Province was discoverable and has since been discovered, and the line running north from the sources of the St. Croix was determined, and those lines, protracted, necessarily intersect. Regardless of this, England put forth the pretension, that the Highlands we claimed severed the waters of the St. Lawrence from those of the St. John, and that it did not run into the sea, but into the Bay of Fundy, although most of the rivers of Maine pass through bays on the way to the sea. By such constructions, by great urbanity, and our desire for peace. Lord Ashburton obtained the territory in dispute. By this Ashburton Treaty, Maine and Massachusetts were to have the free navigation of the St. John River for their timber on its upper waters, but New Brunswick, with the express or implied sanction of Great Britain, deprived us of the right, guaranteed by treaty. She exempted, as Mr. Sabine, secretary of the Boston Board of Trade, informs me, her lumbermen from the license money previously paid on Crown lands, and in place of it imposed an export duty on American and British lumber, thus exacting a tax nearly or quite equal to the value of the Britich timber, as it stood in the Crown lands of the I*rovince. ..; i „ Mr. Everett urged its remission, but failed to obtftin it, and on his return stated to a gentleman, from whom I receive the infor- mation, that Mr. Calhoun, of the South, then in office, instructed him to press no further for a remission. Under the Ashburton Treaty of 1841, we resigned also British Columbia, including the gold mines of Prazer's River, possibly within our lines, and Vancouver's Island, in part, south of 49 degrees — to a large part of which our right, was conclusive, and now, ia con- struing that treaty. Great Britain wishes to deprive us of all right to the main channel and the islands between such channel and the main. Then we made the Reciprocity Treaty, fin making it we were assured that Great Britain and the Provinces were inaugurating the system of Free Trade, that the duties on our products were low, and we could pay in goods for the breadstufis and raw material of Canada, ,|uid we in good faith executed the treaty. w u TEE RECIPROCITY TREATY. t "k It took eflfect March 17th, 1855, as before stated, and Canada with the implied consent of Great Britain, contrary to the understanding of the negotiators, began to raise her duties. By 1859 they were generally advanced. Again, by this treaty the citizens of the United States were to navigate the St. Lawrence and British canals as freely as British subjcotf., but under this treaty, the citizens of the United States, v/ho passed through tlie Welland Canal to the American ports of Oswego and Ogdensburg, have been compelled to pay ten times the tolls that are paid by the Provincials and others who passed down 1 1 the British ports of Montreal and Quebec by the canals of Cauaui. . ■. :•„ ' ,.■'.- -■. » -r,.- ,.*'^"'',. i Again, in the importation of foreign goods into Canada, those imported by the St. Lawrence or Grand Trunk Railway, have been charged a lower ad valorem duty, than those which came via Boston or New York. It is to bo hoped that wo shall hereafter, in making treaties with the Provinces and Great Britain, cover the entire ground, and make treaties that admit of but ono construction, and do our countr ' istice. If Great Britain desires to propitiate this country after all that lias occurred, would it not bo her true policy to cede to us a portion of her remote territories, valuable to x^s but of littlo value to her. Were she to cede to us Vancouver's Island, and British Columbia, so important to our Pacific coast, and so remote from England, and settled in groat part by our own citi- zens, might she not easily bring our claims to a peaceful solution, and would not this be profcvable to a sjwcio payment or reprisals for tlie ravages of licr cruisers. Might she not tlms remove the precedent of the Alabama, so dangerous to her ov.u com- morco ? She has of late reduced hoi estimate of tho value of foreign colonies and advised us to divide, and may she not bo tempted to resign Western Columbiu and a distant island, if she could tlicreUy retain our commerce and avert tlie ultima ratio return, I respectfully submit this to tho consideration of thu Govern- ment. . , , _ ..,,^ Groat Britain could aflbrd to give Austria such a precedent for rof'gning "cnico, and thus induce EurojK) to promote trade by reducing its standing armies. J assumq, .)owevor, that Groat BASIS FOR A NEW TREATY. 65 idont ludo Iroat Britain will conclude to do us justice and will unite with the Provinces in making an equitable treaty of reciprocity, under which our seaboard States to which the Provinces send most of their animals, coal, coarse grains and timber, may pay for them OS they pay for produce from our Western States, with their varied manufactures. In conclusion allow me to suggest the policy of adopting as a basis for a new treaty with Great Britain and the Provinces, the following provisions, or as many of them as can be obtained : — First. That neither party shall establish or maintain either in the Provinces or on the waters that flow into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, or within fifty miles of the same, any free port whatever. Second. That each party shall make all reasonable exertions to discountenance and punish illicit trade between each of the Provinces and their vessels and the United States, by allowing no shipments except by proper manifests and documents, and with reasonable security against smuggling. Third. That each party may impose any duties and imposts whatever upon spirits, malt, malt liquors, wines, cordials, tobacco and its products, silks, satins, laces, velvets, sugar and molasses from the sugar cane, coffee, tea, cocoa, spices, broadcloth, and cotton cloth worth more than one dollar per pound, with this proviso, that each party shall impose duties of at least sixty cents per gallon on spirits and cordials, of at least fifteen cents per pound on manufactured tobacco and tea, and four cents per pound on coffee, spices and cocoh, and two dollars per pound on silks, satins, velvets and lace, imported into either country. Fourth. That the schedule of articles to be imported free, bo changed as follows, viz. : tho articles oi' cotton, lumber, fish and coal to be taken therefrom and tliu additions made which are suggested in the annexed draft of a treaty. Fifth, That specific duties of f I per thousand, board measure, on lumber, ton por cent, on coal and fisli bo imposed. That no duties exceeding twenty per cent, bo imposed on any products of each country not enumerated. 66 BASIS FOR A NEW TBEATT. Sixthf That any citizen of cither country may take a patent or copy-right in the other by one procecs not more costly than the process here. Seventh, That goods received in Canada, through or from the United States in original packages, shall be valued in gold for duty at the cost in the country where they were produced, as if they had come direct, and vice versa on importation^ through Canada. Eighthf That no diminution shall be made on tolls on Cana- dian canals or railways in favor of vessels or goods passing between Lake Erie and points below Ogdensburg, as against parties using the Welland Canal only. That no export duties or charges of any kind be imposed on American timber from Maine, descending St. John River. Ninth, That navigation for vessels drawing 12 to 14 feet each be secured through Lake St. Clair around the Falls of Niagara, down the St. Lawrence and into Lake Champlain, for both countries, and that the canal from Lake Michigan to the Illinois River be deepened. Tenthy That vessels built in either country may be sold and registered in the other, on payment of a duty of five dollars per ton, for a limited period. Eleventh, That tlio treaty bo extended to Newfoundland, Western Columbia, and Vancouver's Island. Twelfth, And if possible, that the rights to the fisheries con- ceded by Treaty of 1783 and re-established by Reciprocity Treaty, bo made pttrpctual. And if as an inducement for this treaty and in settlement of Alabama claims we can obtain a cession of Vancouver's Island or other territory, it will be a consummation most devoutly to be wished for. Such a treaty would be indeed a troaty of reciprocity ; under it our exiwrts to the Provinces would rapidly increase. The export of our manu- factures, which from 1856 to 1863 dwindled, under onerous duties, from seven and one-half to one and one-half million dol- lars, would doubtless soon recover the ground it had lost, and a growth of eight or ten million in our exports would diminish the call for specie to balance our account and give our mer- chants facilities to make further purchases in the Provinces. Canada under such a treaty would doubtless prosper. Return freights frtm this country would reduce the freight uf broad- OOITFEBENCES. ff' stufiTs, the ships wc should receive from the Provinces would swell our marine, instead of that of England and contribute something to the National revenue, without injustice to our own ship-builders. . ....... Under such a treaty there would be a fair rivalry between New York and Canada for the improvement of their respective canals, and if Qrcat Britain should aid Canada in opening ship canals from Ogdensburg to the city of Montreal and Lake Champlain, and it should be the policy of our country to carry a ship canal around the Palls of Niagara, New York might be stimulated to connect Lakes Ontario and Champlain with the Hudson by ship canals or railways like the Reading railway, with a regular descent to the deep waters of the Hudson and the Tunnel route to Boston. Should such measures be adopted we may place our trust in the advantages which climate, and open seas, and safe navigation and harbors, rarely closed by ice, give to our great seaports, and may safely rely upon the future of our country. Most of the v'ows taken in this Report have been confirmed since it was written by a conference with some of the most able and influential men in the Provinces, and there is no reason to doubt that a treaty can bo negotiated more satisfactory than that repealed. There is reason to believe that most of our productions may be placed on the free list, that the free ports may be dis- continued, that duties imposed for revenue may be assimilated, and discriminating tolls and duties, if any now remain, bo dis- continued, and possibly some revenue drawn from several of the important staples of Canada. And after the conference I have held, it is but just to Canada and her ministers to say that the duties imposed by Canada may be in part ascribed to un- favorable seasons between 185G and 1863, and to the pressure of a debt of seventy millions incurred in great part for public improvements, still unproductive, and to an extreme solicitude to develop trade and revenue proportionate to her large ex- penditure. During tliis conferonco the idea of extending the treaty for another year to give time to negotiate and to avoid a collision in the fisheries was suggested. It will be difficult to have a no>? m CONFERENCES. treaty ratified by all the parties before the 17th of March, 1866. And I respectfully recommend that power should be given to the President to extend the Treaty of Reciprocity for a single year if Canada shall before the 1st of April next discontinue her free ports and check illicit trade by raising her duties on spirits to the point at which our Revenue Commissioners shall recommend our Government to place it, and shall repeal her duties on the articles named in the annexed draft of a treaty. Such a repeal she is disposed to make, and it would be an earnest of a better treaty.* I submit with this Preliminary Report a series of tables, some valuable documents, and the draft of an Act for the temporary extension of the treaty. I have the honor to be, very respectfully, E. H. DERBY, Gommimoner of the Treasury Department. Boston, Mass., Jan. ], 1866. "' The St. Lawrence, for more than nine miles below Montreal, to a width of three hundred feet, has been dcepeued seven feet, St a cost estimated at less than 9i,0Q0,000 for moving fire million yards of earth. Less than one-eighth of the Lalco freight goes down to Montreal. For ten years, between 1845-1865, the charge for freight from Montreal to Liverpool, averaged twice the charge from New York to the same port ly TEMPORARY RENEWAL OP THE TREATY. -J, r., , , :^ viii . ■' 't^'):.' >■ .'. .<■/ ■/ APPENDIX. AN ACT To Provide fob the Tempoeart Renewal of the Treaty op Reciprocity with Great Britain and the British Prov- inces OP North America. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled: Section 1. That the President of the United States is hereby authorized, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to enter into a Treaty with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and with each and all of the British Provinces of North America, either severally or in their aggre- gate ca-pacity, for the extension of the Treaty between said parties and the United States, to regulate the trade between said Provinces and the United States, which was ratified June 5th, 1854, for the further term of one year, from the 17th day of March, A. D. 1867, when the same Shall terminate. Section 2. Such extension shall not be made until the Province of Canada has repealed all duties and taxes whatever on the following products of the United States, that during such extension shall be imported info Canada, or shall be held in bond when such extension shall take effect, viz. : Salt, cars, locomotives, vehicles of all kinds, machinery, furniture, tools, implements, soap, starch, boots, shoes, leather, horse-shoes and horse-shoe nails, harnesses, tacks, brads> watches, music and musical instruments, clocks, tin and wooden ware, mousselino de laincs, coarse shawls, satinets, and sheetings and shirtings wonu less than one dollar per pound, and has raised her internal tax ond duly on spirits to at least seventy-five cents per gallon, wine measurr and discontinued her free ports on Lakes Huron and Superior. Section 3. Said Treaty for extension shall also provide that the United l^^tates may impose any intenial taxes on the productions of the Provinces which they levy upon their own products of the same kind. Section 4, The President of the United States is hereby authorized to appoint two persons, of suitable character and ability, commissioners or envoys, to negotiate n Treaty with said United Kingdom and with said Provinces, either jointly or severally, to regulate the commerce and 70 TONNAGE. navigation between the respective territories and people of said Province and the United States, on terms reciprocallj beneficial. Section 5. It shall be the duty of such commissioners to provide, if possible, for the permanent security of the fisheries of the United States, to secure the free interchange of the chief products of art and manufacture, as well as the products of the forests and agriculture, and other products, between said Provinces and the United States, to secure, if possible, the discontinuance of any free ports that may endanger reve- nue, and the assimilation of duties or articles taxed by the two countries, and the removal of all charges for lights and compulsory pilotage, and all discriminating tolls and duties, and for improved navigation between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi around the Falls of Niagara and between Lake Ontario, Montreal and Lake Champlain. Section 6. A suitable compensation for said commissioners, and for their clerk hire, office rent, and other expenses, not to exceed in the aggregate , shall be fixed and determined by the Secretary of the Treasury. Section 7. AU articles produced in any of the Provinces, which, under the provision of the Treaty for extension, if made, shall be fireely adijoitted into Canada, from the United States, shall, during the year of extension, be freely admitted into the United States, from Canada, if produced in that ootmtiy. . TABLES. l\mnag» enttrtd inward from United Statt$ in aU th$ Pnmneti of Briiiah North America. 4/ Toi«. TBAB8. t . U.IUtM. BritMi. TDUl. 1816, 76,807 J 8,878 04,160 1820, "SI, '23, average, . 66,020 10,464 76,508 ^ 1880, 54,683 20,756 , 76,888 1840, ........ 867,078 401,670 758,740 1880, 094,808 072,827 1,067,186 4884, 1,665,404 1,446,847 8,113,541 , IMPORTS, EZPOBXS, AND TONNAGE. 71 Lnport$ into the Provinces of Britith North America in different years. DATE. JftomOnst DriUln. From United States. TotaL 1840, .... X\ncv| • • • • •16,885,166 00 11,346,834 00 •6,100,501 00 8,842,520 00 r •21,485,667 00 19,688,854 00 Easports and hnporta ofihn seme in Commerce with the United Slates. DATE. Exports to United States. Imports flrom same. •4,989,708 00 4,417,476 00 4,046,843 00 '5,207,420 00 7,947,897 00 •8,628,214 00 8,883,755 00 8,286,611 00 11,882,311 00 12,828,812 00 Aggregate Tonnage of the Provinces of Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Prince Edwards Mand, at various periods since 1800. 1806, tons, . . . 71,943 1830f «... 176,040 1836, «... 274,738 1846, tons, . . . '899,204 1850, «... 446,935 Tonnage of new Ships built in the above I^rovinces in several years since 1830. 1832, tons, . . . 33,778 1841,* «... 104,087 1849, «... 108,038 1850, tons, . . . 112,787 1862, «... 109,212 Tonnage owned in Great Britain, buiU in the Provinces in 1847. Boilt in Canada, 154,930 Built in Nova Scotia, 103,319 BuUt in New Brunswick, 228,368 Built in Prince Edwards Island, 56,079 Built in Newfoundland, 5,631 72 TONNAGE AND COMMEBGB. CANADA. BarUH FSOM CAXADA||r • CUAB^XOU TO CaHADA nan Umth> Stats*. DATE. Ameriean Tonnage. ronl(n Tonnage. Ameriean Tonnage. roKlgn Tonnage. 1861, . • . . 1,864,390 1,047,628 906,988 770,450 1860, . . . . 2,617,276 658,036 2,678,505 896,124 1861 1,996,892 684,879 2,025,670 731,123 1862, . . . . 2,487,378 683,411 2,898,924 742,732 1868, .... 2,807,233 743,136 2,181,065 987,797 1864, ... . 1,411,918 959,049 1,429,347 1,148,609 ^ Maritime Province$: — Ootnmerce with United States. Ektsibb. CUABAVCta. DATE. American Foreign American Foreign Tonnage. Tonnage. Tonnage. Tonnage. 1860, . . . . 184,062 475,051 291,812 599,430 1861, .... 196,709 476,051 297,172 609,928 1862, .... 246,821 897,702 292,449 352,391 1868 218,261 420,961 260,280 426,662 1864, .... 254,281 487,908 339,901 681,804 i LnporU into Canada from abroad. DATE. By Bt lawience. Br Cnite4 Btatea. ToUl. 1850, .... •8,640,000 00 r,404,800 00 •16,946,600 00 Exporlt from Canada. 185Q, ; • • • •7,474,496 00 •5,818,500 00 •13,287,806 00 IMPORTS AND EXPORTS. 78 Value of Breadstuff's and other Ariicles eaeported to Canada from United States, in different years. M'- ' — ■- DATE. BiMdttoflk. other ArtlclM. Aggregate. 1856, . . . . 93,880,098 00 817,008,143 00 420,883,241 00 1857, 8,418,066 00 13,156,849 00 16,574,895 00 1858, 4,198,282 00 18,830,972 00 17,029,254 00 1850, 3,610,638 00 15,430,154 00 18,940,792 00 1860, 2,913,139 00 11,169,975 00 14,083,114 00 1861, 5,172,588 00 9,189,270 00 14,361,858 00 1862, . 5,416,853 00 7,425,651 00 12,842,504 00 1863, . 0,588,390 00 10,810,328 00 19,898,718 00 :»^<50, specie, 1861, « . $14,444 00 . 863,808 00 1862, specie, 1863, " $2,530,297 00 , 4,651,679 GO Of above breadstiifFs the following amount was exported by St. Lawrence : — I860, 18*61, . $1,846,462 00 . 8,103,153 00 1862, . $5,320,054 00 Coarse Grains exported from Canada to the United States. From "i Official Eetums. ,, i DATE. Oatt, boBh. Valae. Barley, bull. Value. 1860, . : . 6,788,351 94,182,856 00 — - .. 1861, . . . 8,654,380 1,509,277 00 - - 1863, . . . 1,671,223 483,862 00 2,090,279 •1,089,589 00 1863, . . 2,563,323 1,050,803 00 1,810,589 1,509,978 00 1864, . . . 9,549,994 2,960,737 00 2,814,289 2,904,124 00 Valus of Manufactured Articles of the United States exported to Canada, and paying duties. 1860, n)parative tonnage of American and Canadiaa vessels, passing through tho WeUand Canal in 1863 :— 8,474 American vessels, tons, 808,289 3,425 Canadian vessels, tons, 521,808 Movement on /^. Lawrence Canals, 1859, tons transported, 631,769 1860, tons transported, 733,596 ■If TONNAGE. Tonnage hy Canadian CcmaU — Ccmduded. ' '■ " ' " ' ' ■ — .- i ■■■■.I. . , I ■ ■— . I .-,1 — ... - ^ ■ ■ Receipts in Montreal, by the La Chine Canal, in 1862, were, — Wheat, bushels, ........ 7,779,727 Floor, equal to bushels, . . . . . , 8,861,935 Indian Cora, bushels, . ... • . . 2,691,261 Shipped, . . . .... . . 11,262,728 Tonnage by Grand Trunk Railroad. Average movement in transit trade, via Grand Trunk, from England to Canada, from 1854 to 1864, $4,500,000 per annum. Estimated earnings of Grand Trunk, 1865, $6,200,000. Cost of line, $82,000,000. Coal imported from Maritime Provinces into the United Slates. DATE. Tout. Valoe. 1866, . . , . . . „*. . 120,446 •368,671 00 1857, ■ lii • • 9 ■ • m 133,218 396,222 00 1858, Al*«S#i''\:" '^0^\* 136,733 387,710 00 1869, urn • • 122,708 . 872,154 00 1860, , m • • 149,279 497,359 00 1861, 1 • • • 204,420 702,165 00 1862, • • • 192,544 614,057 00 1863, . . //. ' ■' %,Mfm' 282,767 757,048 00 1864, » V • >^ • '• 317,500 883,779 00 Freight from Fictou to Boston has* averaged not far from $2, in gold, por ton, during 1865 ; less than the freight from Baltimore to Boston. NOVA SCOTIA. -^ >M?t ■ m^-st.v. DATE. Import!. Exports. 1829, i,*.'^;^ »F#*bww!!fri,»' -lAftr i' •4,780,U64 00 92,639,093 00 1832, 7,380,509 00 4,717,387 00 1888, 6,139,531 00 4,902,989 00 1843, 4,221,168 00 8,408,782 00 1848, 4,024,382 00 2,514,100 00 1861, 7,613,227 00 6,774,534 00 1862, 8,450,042 00 6,646,461 00 J^OBTS AND IMPORTS. PRmOE EDWARDS ISLAND. rr DATE. Imports. ExporU. 1845, 1850, 1861, 1121,937 00 630,475 00 1,049,675 00 970,204 00 360,465 00 816,570 00 NEW BRUNSWICK— Shipping htih in vartws years. 1833, tons, . 17,837 1846, tons. . 40,270 1836, « . 29,643 1847, « . 63,372 1838, « . . . 29,167 1848, « ►' , . 22,79a 1839, « . . . 45,864 1849, « . 36,534 1840, « . . . 64,104 1859, « .• . 38,330 1843, «* . . . 14,550 1861, « . 40,523 Exports and Imports of the Province of New Brunsmck, at different periods, in its commerce with all places. DATE. _ 1834, • «. ^ t. >' s * • . • 1839, . . jsj,, :i0 >K*^:.^i->r * 1842, . . . . . . . 1846, 1848 XOsV^ • • • ' • • • • 1861, Imports. Exports. •3,089,188 00 8,749,601 00 6,997,777 00 7,263,378 00 2,693,473 00 4,972,876 00 3,021,158 00 3,330,847 00 4,852,440 00 6499,701 00 92,397,704 00 2,778,738 00 3,122,952 00 3,932,536 00 2,339,899 00 4,256,462 00 8,068,165 00 2,887,017 00 3,780,105 00 3,856,538 00 Duties, in 1850, on anchors, canvas, cordage, cables, copper bolts, seines, nets, sails, rigging and tar, one per cent. Tools, bread, biscuits, &c., ten per cent. Boots, shoes, vehicles, clocks, chairs, brooms, musical instruments, wooden ware, matches, &c., 20 per cent. Other articles, in part free, in part under a small duty. 78 EXPORTS AND IMPOBTS, FISHERIES. Exports from Newfoundland. 1763, qumtals- of fish, . 386,274 1785, « . 591,276 1705, « . 600,000 1805, " . 625,919 1815, " . 1,180,661 1820, « . 899,729 1825, " . 973,464 1830, quintals offish, . 948,643 1835, u . 712,588 1837, <( . 524,696 1840, u . 915,795 1841, u . 1,009,725 1848, u . 920,366 If U.iited States Vessels engaged in the Fisheries, exclusive of thf Whale Fishery. 181', tons 1820, " 1825, « 1830, •' 1835, « 1840, « 26,510 60,812 70,626 97,500 137,800 104,300 1845, tous . . 91,238 1850, « . . 143,758 1855, « . . 124,552 1860, « . . 162,763 1862, " .. . 203,459 1863, « . . 163,000 The vessels are sailed in shares, and all are interested iu the voyage. The ovTiers provide vessel, tackle, stores and outfit, and receive ht^lf the fish talc^n ; each man claims half the fish ho takes. The annual sum paid out by the owners, including payment^) of shares to the men, repairs and renewals, and all disbursements, are computed to exceed $80 per ton, — and as the business n akcs^mc returns on capi- tal, wo nwy estimate tho gross produce for 1865, as above $14,000,000. In 1865, vessels iu the cod-fishery are estimated to average from 800 to 1,000 quintals of dry fish. In the mackerel business, from 500 to 700 barrels. Dry fish aro now worth $8 to $9 per quintal, and mackerel $1 2 to $15 per barrel. Number of Vessels engntged in Cod and Mackerel Fishery, a* estimated at the Register's Office, Treasury Department, November, 24, 1865, by J. A. GuAHAM, Assistant-Jiegister. 7850, 1851, 1852, 1858, 1854, 1855, 1850, 1857, 2,680 2,591 3,262 2,996 2,627 .\418 2,414 2,460 1858, 1859, 1860, 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, 3,877 8,044 8,168 3,666 8<«15 3,196 3,000 FISHEBIES. 79 J'VjA and Products of the Fisheries, imported from the Maritime PrO' vinces into the United States. 1856, 1857, 1858, 1859, 1860, $1,935,960 1,867,259 1,744,704 2,150,420 2,116,412 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, . $1,716,813 . 1,020,208 ", 908,024 y 1,376,704 EstimcUe of the Fisheries of the United States for 1859, 6y Hon. L Sabine, Secretary of Boston Board of Trade. The tonnage alone is official. T'he sea and whale arc estimated on official data. The shell, lake, nver, &C., rest on some well asccrtaiaed facts. ,^'' ' ^ . W:'' Sea, as cod, hake, haddock, mackerel, halibut, polloclc, and sea herring: — Tonnage* • . . 175,30^ Value of fish and oU, $6,730,000 " Capital invested, 7,280,000 . Tonnage, in whale fishery, 185,728 Capital invested, $23,850,000 00 Value of oil, bone, and sperm candles, . . . 19,280,000 00 Shell, as oyster, lobs^pr, turtle, clam, &c., &c., . . 6,825,000 00 Lake and River, Brook and Stream — say salmon, shad, white fish, river herring, alewives, trout, pickerel, &c., &c. f fc ♦ A f.^ f *, . 2,875,000 00 Fish taken purposely for manure, value, . . . 260,000 00 Svmmary of Annual Inducts. Cod, &c. $6,730,000 00 Whale, 19,280,000 00 Shell, 6,825,000 00 Lake, river, Ac, 2,375,000 00 For inaiiuro, , . * ^, . 260,000 00 Total, . . .... . . . $83,970,000 00 * Th« official tonnage i« i«M. The difference is added for boats employed in the sbora fliheriei, which are neither enrolled nor licensed 80 CHIEP CANALS OP CANADA. IF ERIE CANAL. Tonnage arriving at tide water by Erie Canal, from the Western States: In 1840, 158,148 tons; in 1845, 304,551 tons ; in 1850, 773,858 tons; in 1855, 1,092,876 tons; in 1860, 1,896,975 tons; in 1862, 2,594,837 tons. ^ Tlie revenues of Erie Canal were : For 1861, $3,402,628.30 ; for 1862,' $4,854,989; for 1863, $5,042,005. Reyenue of Champlain Canal, $163,000; tonnage, 658,000. Between 1851 and 1854, the tolls were removed from the Central Railway; and the New "York and Erie, Ogdcnsburg, Baltimore and Ohio, Grand Trunk, and Great Western Railways were completed. The tonnage of the Central, and New York and Erie lines was, in 1862, over 3,000,000 tons, and has since greatly increased. • >•"" tJ 'rH'ff/i •.. ..I f Length, Dimensions and Lockage of Chief Canals of Canada. '■;.■. The Welland Canal, between Lakes Erie and Ontario, — Length, 2fj miles ; locks, 28. Fall from Lake Erie, 334 feet. Locks, 180 feet by 27 feet; depth 10 feet. Admits vessels of 400 tons, drawing 9 feet. St. Lawrence Canals. — Length, 44 miles. Locks, 27. Ascent from Montreal to foot of Lake Ontario, 222 feet. Depth in locks, 9 feet. Admit vessels of 300 tons. Vessels drawing 20 feet water, now ascend to Montreal ; but, as the depth of canals is determined by that of Lake St. Clair, which does not admit vcsscIb drawing over 9 feet, it is pro- posed to deepen these canals to 10 feet, and alter dimensions of locks to 250 feet length by 50 feet width, which will admit vessels drawing 9 feet, and of capacity of 750 tons. The Caughnawaga Canal, which it has been proposed, in Canada, to construct from the St. Lawrence to St. John, at the foot of Lake Cham- plain, by one route requires five locks, by another, requires but two locks, and would bo 36 miles long. It was proposed to have locks 230 feet long by 36 feet wide, and 10 feet water on the sills, admitting vessels of 850 tons. From "NVljitehall, at the head of Lake Champlain, to West Tmy, the distance is 67 miles ; the lockage, 204 feet. The locks admit small vessels only. Ad the summit level is but 54 feet above Lake Champlain, the lake may possibly bo used as a summit level, and there are grtiat facilities for a ship canal. It has been cstinmtcd that $12,000,000 will carry ship caiialH iiiul navigation from the St. Lawrence to the deep waters of .tho Hudson. ff ILLICIT "fRADE. «1 A ship canal from the St. Lawrence to Lake Champlain has been recommended to the Canadian Government by Messrs Young and Rob- inson, Chief Commissioners of the Public Works ; also by Mr. W. H. Merritt; in his report upon the public works of Canada, and by a nearly unanimous vote of the House of Assembly of Canada. It has been recommended, also, by the Boards of Trade of Boston, Kingston, Montreal, and other cities. The route has been surveyed by J. B. Mills, Esq., and by Messrs. Jervis, Swift and Child, Civil Engineers. Such are the levels that a dam iu the Hudson, at the Highlands, of 150 feet in height, would send back the stream to the St. Lawrence. The estimates of Mr. Jervis for & ship canal between the St. Law- rence and Lake Champlain, ranged from $3,500,000 to $4,600,000. Mr. Swift's estimate was but $2,083,000. •i BOSTON. The commerce of Boston, affected by the Treaty of Reciprocity, exceeds $27,000,000 annually, viz.: — Imports fixjm and exports to maritime Provinces, $6,000,000. Outfits and returns in deep sea fish- eries, $11,000,000. Imports of wool, grain, and animals, across frontier of Canada, and entered there, with returns, at least, $10,000,000. t: Record of Smuggling Cases since April 1, 1865, at Detroit, Michigan. Furnished by J. B. Bkown, Esq., U, S. Assistant District-Attorney. December 3, ISG6. ' ; ^ ^ Number of arrests made, . of indictments found, . of convictions, of iudictnicnts undisposed of, of acquittals. Amount of fines imposed and paid, of costs imposed and paid, . '.'" of fines imposed, yet unpaid, . of fines imposed and remitted by President, . ISrattAer of libels filed, Amoimt of pergonal property seized and ibrfeited, about *-• 120 94 38 65 None. $1,925 00 653 80 3,385 00 500 00 38 $12,000 00 n f IT 82 ANNEXATION. "^ANNEXATION. [Extract from Speeoh of J. Jobnstou, Esq., of Milvraakee, at Detroit Gonvention, 1805.] There are those who think that, while the closest commercial inter- course Tvith Canada is desirable, yet hope, by stopping that intercoui-se for a few years, to compel the Canadians to sue for annexation. Vain delusion! Every link between the United States and the Provinces that is severed, tends to strengthen the connection between the latter and the mother country. Annexation will never be brought about by force in matters of trade. Why, the independent existence of this great country arose from the attempts of Britain to coerce the Colonies in this very respect. No, sir, if we wish to annex the Provinces, we have to assimilate them, by unrestricted intercourse, to our habits and our man- ners of action and feeling — we have to Americanize them. That will assuredly be done far sooner by reciprocal trade and by Conventions like this than by non-intercourse. Every railroad that is built, every telegraph that is erected, every ship that passes between the two countries, tends to bind them closer in the bands of brotherhood. The opponents of reciprocity tantalize us by parading the millions of revenue which we would have obtained from the articles now being imported from the Provinces, had they not been made free by the Treaty. They forget to tell us that this great trade would not have existed bad it not been for the Treaty; and even had it existed, and a large revenue accrued fix)m it, we would have been the persons who would have enjoyed the privilege of paying the duties, and not the Canadians, for it is the consumers of commodities who pay the imposts upon them. "But, think you, would the people of these Northern States be more able to pay their taxes ailer this immense and profitable trade is destroyed than they are now? [Extract Oom the Speech of lion. Joskph Howk of Nora Scotia, b«fore Detroit Convention.] No considerations of finance, no question of balance for or against them, upon interchanges of commodities, can have any influence unon the loyalty of the inhabitants of the British Provinces, or tend in the slightest degree to alienate the affections of the people from their country, their institutions, their government, and their Queen. There is not a loyal man in the British American Provinces, no man worthy of the name, who, whatever may happen to the Treaty, will become any the less loyal, any the less true to his country on that accoimt. There is not a man wlio dare, on the abrogation of the Treaty, if such should be its fate, take the hustings and appeal to any constituency on annexa- tion principles throughout the entire domain. The man who aTowi r, ''% OCEAN STEAMERS. I 1 •such a sentiment will be scouted ik>m society by his best friends. What other treatment would a man deserve who shoiold turn traitor to his sovereign and his government, and violate, for pecimiary advan- tage, all obligations to the country which gave him birth? You know what you call Copperheads, and a nice life they have of it. (Laughter.) Just such a life will the man have who talks treason on the other side of the lines. (Applause.) The very boy to whom I have alluded as having fought manfully for the Stars and Stripes, would rather blow his own father's brains out than haul down the honored flag under which he has been bom — the flag of his nation and of his fatherland. I !t [Extract from Speech of G. H. Ferbt, C. E., of Ottowa, Canada West.] The blessings which imrestricted commercial intercourse would bestow upon both nations are incalculable. As friends and neighbors, it would improve the good understanding which should exist between people having so many interests in common; and it would prove a ^ blessing to the vast mass of the overpeopled countries of Europe. Hostile tariffs will not produce any of those effocts which the advo- •cates of protection desire. They 'tvill not develop any of the resources of the "Western States, nor will they add to the wealth or happiness of the vast mass of the people, or the prosperity of the general commerce of the country. They will not bring about the consummation so earnestly desired by your extreme politicians, of annexation. Content with our lover political life and greater personal freedom^ we leave to the aspirants after new nationalities the higher political life they covet, nor do we regret the accompanying concomitants, in our content witU^ur o^n condition. ■^ OCEAN STEAMERS. df [Extract fW>m the Speech of Ddmcan Stewart, Esq., at Detroit.] I consider that, with twelve feet six inches to fourteen feet water, down the St. Lawrence, it will always be more profitable to transfer at Montreal or Quebec, than attempt to cross the ocean with lake-going steamers. The reason of this is, that in reaching Quebec, they need not put on board fuel fur more than u run of two hundred miles at a time, thus saving a vast amount of freight room ; whereas, in crossing the ocean, tliey must put fuel on board for the run of twenty-five hundred miles, and a surphix t'^ cover contingencies. It would bo unwise to have that surplus Ivss than enough to nui three thousand miles. Every gentleman who has any experience in thi» buttiuesH will see at onct; that it would take flileen times moro tnnnaga jroom for Aiel to cross the ocean than it would take to ran down Wfc FISHEHIES IN GTTLT ST. LAWRI!NCE. 'I Ij :f the river. In going xioihi' tha river, there would he no need to have- over twenty-flve tons of coal on board at any one time, including the surplusi because twenty tons would be sufficient to run a screw steamer of one thousand tons cargo capacity, with a low-pressure engine, two hundred miles, leaving nine hundred and seventy-five tons for cargo- and iwenty-five tons for coal— only two and one-half per cent, of the carrying capacity being reserved for fuel; whereas, for the ocean voy- age, it would be imsafe to leave port with less than two hundred and fifty tons of coal, or twenty-five per cent, of the carrying capacity — leaving only seven hundred and fifty tons for freight roop. I think this dearly demonstrates the economy of a transfer of cargo at either Montreal or Quebec. ' '^ ? /V^ * FISHEHIES IN GUtP OP ST. LAWRENCE. [Extract from Letter of Messrs. Deam and Law, dated Charlottetown, P. E. I., July 3, 1865, read at Detroit Conyention.] For some years previous to the time the Reciprocity Treaty went into eflfect, the Americans fishing were embarrassed in consequence of the three mile limit, and the construction put upon it by Colonial officers, that it meant three miles outside of a straight line from head- land to headland, which, in many localities, where the buoys were deep, would make them many miles off, and the continual harassing and capturing of our vessels — so much so as to nearly ruin the business as a -whole — the tonnage engaged fast depreciating, and at the time the Treaty went into effect the fishing fleet in the Bay and Gulf of St. Lawrence was much smaller than it had been some years before. We think that, for one or two years previous to the Treaty,' there could not have been more than two hundred and fifty sail of American vessels in these waters, averaging seventy-five tons each; value, three thousand dollars each, and manned by eleven men each, with on average catch of mackerel of two hundred and seventy-fivo barrels each; estimated value, twelve dollars per barrel, gross, and ten dollars not— Gloucester having a majority of tlic fleet, being most daring in the pursuance of Jier business. In the lost two years, wo think, there have been employed six hundred vessels ; average tonnage, ninety each^ value, five thousand «'oIlar8 each, ond manned by fifteen men each, with an average aitJi ui (ive hundred and twenty-five barrels of mackerel; estimated value, at the time of landing, fourteen dollars and a half per barrel, groiis, and twelve dollars net.