Senate to invade the autonomous jurisdiction of Hawaii and to transfer the absolute property in and jurisdiction over the harbor to the United States.

To satisfy the natural and proper susceptibilities of Hawaiians, of which, as I have heretofore informed you, strong intimations have emanated from those charged with the administration of my Government in their communications to me, I take occasion to say that I consider it probable that my Government will desire that its understanding of the article in this respect shall be made known to the Government of the United States.

Another point which may to some minds be left in doubt would be the duration of the license or right granted by the interpolated article.

The article mentions no special term for the continuance of the privileges, but as the whole and only purpose of the convention into which the article was inserted was, as stated in its preamble, to fix the definite limitation of the duration of the existing convention providing for the reciprocal exchange of privileges, to which this privilege is added by virtue of this interpolated article, it follows, in the absence of any stipulation to the contrary, that its term of duration would be the same as that fixed for the other privileges given by the original convention.

The only excuse for the insertion of such an article into a treaty of this nature would be its relevancy to the privileges stipulated for in the original convention of 1875, to which this is supplementary, and the duration of which this convention is intended to limit and define.

No separate single article or part of a treaty can be held to have a continuing power apart from the rest of the treaty, unless provided for in specific terms. The supplementary provisions and the original provisions which they affect are necessarily merged into one instrument to be dealt with thenceforth as a whole.

It could not have been expected in the Senate that Hawaii would consent to a perpetual grant of the privilege sought in return for a seven years' extension of the term of the treaty of 1875, especially in view of the danger of a material lessening of the advantages to Hawaii by changes in the tariff laws of the United States, and it must be apparent that if any different term of duration was intended it would have been stipulated for, as it can not be thought that the Senate had any other intent than that plainly set forth.

Therefore the conclusion which I have reached, and which I think is the obvious conclusion to be drawn from the words of the interpolated article, is that it does not and is not intended to invade or diminish in any way the autonomous jurisdiction of Hawaii, while giving to the United States the exclusive rights of use in Pearl Harbor stipulated therein, for the sole purpose stated in the article; and further, that the Article II of the convention and the privileges conveyed by it will cease and determine with the termination of the treaty of 1875, under the conditions fixed by this convention.

I apprehend that my Government will agree with my conclusions, and that in considering the advisability of ratifying the convention with the amendment inserted by the United States Senate, my sovereign will doubtless be aided in coming to a favorable conclusion if it shall be found that on these questions of interpretation of a convention the two Governments do not differ, and the Hawaiian Government will doubtless desire that their understanding, which I believe that I have set forth in this note, shall be fully understood by the Government of the United States before ratifications are exchanged.

With renewed assurances, etc.,

H. A. P. CARTER.

Mr. Bayard to Mr. Carter.

No. 383.]

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, September 23, 1887.

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of to-day's date, in response to mine of the 22d instant touching the pending supplementary convention between the United States and His Majesty the King of the Hawaiian Islands.

The amendment relating to the harbor of Pearl River was adopted, in its executive sessions, by the Senate, and I have no other means of arriving at its intent and meaning than the words employed naturally import.

No ambiguity or obscurity in that amendment is observable, and I can discern therein no subtraction from Hawaiian sovereignty over the harbor to which it relates, nor any language importing a longer duration for the interpolated Article II than is provided for in Article I of the supplementary convention.

S. Doc. 231, pt 8—17

The limitation of my official powers does not make it competent for me in this connection to qualify, expand, or explain the amendments ingrafted on that convention by the Senate, but in the present case I am unable to perceive any need for auxiliary interpretation or ground for doubt as to the plain scope and meaning thereof; and, as the President desires a ratification of the supplementary convention in its present shape, I can see no cause for any misapprehension by your Government as to the manifest effect and meaning of the amendment in question. I therefore trust that it will be treated as it is tendered, in simple good faith, and accepted without doubt or hesitation.

Accept, sir, etc.,

T. F. BAYARD.

No. 384.]

Mr. Carter to Mr. Bayard.

HAWAIIAN LEGATION, Washington, November 5, 1887.

SIR: I have the honor to inform you that I have received from Honolulu a copy of the supplementary convention negotiated in this city in December, 1884, between the late Mr. Frelinghuysen and myself, as amended by the Senate of the United States during the last session of Congress, duly signed by His Majesty the King of Hawaii, together with full power to exchange the ratification of His Majesty for that of the President of the United States.

The notes exchanged between yourself and this legation on the 23d of September last removed any objections previously existing to the ratification of the convention as amended, and if you will kindly name a day and hour when it will be convenient to you to exchange the ratifications, I shall take pleasure in waiting upon you for that purpose.1

With renewed assurance, etc.,

H. A. P. Carter.

April 6, 1888.

Mr. Sherman made the following report:

The Committee on Foreign Relations, to whom was referred the treaty between the United States and Zanzibar, concluded July 3, 1886, enlarging and defining the stipulations of the treaty of September 21, 1833, between the United States and His Majesty Seyed Syed Bin, Sultan of Muscat and Sovereign of Zanzibar, having had the same under consideration, beg leave to report it back with the following amendments:

In the preamble, line 12, strike out the word "said."

Article II, line 1, strike out the words "and Consular Agents." Same article, line 3, after the word "shall," insert the words: in addition to the rights, powers, and immunities secured by said article. And that the Senate do advise and consent to the ratification of the said treaty as so amended.

May 2, 1888.

Mr. Sherman made the following report:

The Committee on Foreign Relations, to whom was referred the convention between the United States and China, for the exclusion hereafter of Chinese laborers from coming to the United States, signed and concluded at Washington, March 12, 1888, having had the same under consideration, beg to report it back to the Senate with the recommendation that the said convention be amended, as follows, viz., At the end of Article I add the following: And this prohibition shall

'The ratifications of the supplementary article of December 6, 1884, were exchanged November 9, 1887.

extend to the return of Chinese laborers who are not now in the United States, whether holding return certificates under existing laws or not. At the end of Article II add the following: And no such Chinese laborer shall be permitted to enter the United States by land or sea without producing to the proper officer of the customs the return certfiicate herein required,

And that the Senate do advise and consent to the ratification of the said convention as so amended.

May 6, 1888.

Mr. Sherman made the following report:

The Committee on Foreign Relations, to whom was referred the treaty of friendship, commerce, and navigation between the United States and the Republic of Peru, signed at Lima, August 31, 1887, having had the same under consideration, beg leave to report the treaty back to the Senate with the recommendation that the following amendments be agreed to:

Article XII, next to the last line of the article, after the word "duty,” strike out the word "import" and insert in lieu thereof the word impost;

Article XXVII, line 11, after the word "order," strike out the word "therefore" and insert in lieu thereof the word therefor;

Article XXXV. Strike out the whole of section 4 of this article, in the following words:

"4th. The high contracting parties engage themselves to consider the Chief Executives of the two countries authorized to arrange in a friendly and definite manner the claims and other questions pending between the two Governments, as also such as may hereafter arise. With this object, and when they may consider it necessary, the said Executives will submit the adjustment of such matters to the decision of an arbitrator, or of an arbitrating commission, whose form of appointment, duties, and procedure necessary in pronouncing decisions, and expenses incident thereto, will be arranged by agreement or convention, for the determination of which the said Executives will be considered equally empowered by the fact of the ratification of the present treaty. As the object of these provisions is to avoid that the high contracting parties should resort to acts of hostility, reprisals, or aggression of any nature, without exerting themselves, of preference, through appeal to arbitration, in order to arrange their differences, it is declared that these do not exclude the right of resort to other means of national redress in case of necessity. But in event of having resorted to arbitration the decision or decisions of the arbitrator or arbitrators shall be respected and held inviolable."

Article XXV. Change the number of section "5th" in the original to section 4th as amended;

And that the Senate do advise and consent to the ratification of the said convention as so amended.

May 7, 1888.

[See pp. 610, 615, Vol. V.]

[Senate Executive Report No. 3.]

Mr. Edmunds, from the Committee on Foreign Relations, submitted the following report (Executive No. 3) on the treaty (Ex. M.) between

the United States and Great Britain, concerning the interpretation of the convention of October 20, 1818, signed at Washington February 15, 1888; which, together with the views of the minority on the same subject, submitted by Mr. Morgan, was ordered to be printed in confidence for the use of the Senate.

The Committee on Foreign Relations, to which was referred the message of the President of the United States of the 20th February last, transmitting a proposed treaty between the United States and Great Britain, concerning the interpretation of the convention of the 20th October, 1818, signed at Washington February 15, 1888, respectfully reports:

That it has had the said proposed treaty under careful and deliberate consideration and that it returns herewith a resolution in the ordinary form for its ratification, with the expression of its opinion that said resolution ought not to be adopted.

As preliminary to a consideration of the text of the treaty itself in its various aspects, the committee thinks it proper to give a brief résumé of the history of the fisheries question and other matters relating to the intercourse between the United States and the British dominions of North America having more or less relation thereto.

Before the Revolution the inhabitants of all the British colonies in North America possessed as a common right the right of fishing on all the coasts of British North America, and these rights were, in a broad sense, prescriptive and accustomed rights of property. At the end of the Revolution and by the treaty of peace of 1783, which adjusted the boundaries between the dominions of the two powers, it was (Article III)—

Agreed that the people of the United States shall continue to enjoy unmolested the right to take fish of every kind on the Grand Bank and on all the other banks of Newfoundland; also in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and at all other places in the sea where the inhabitants of both countries used at any time heretofore to fish, and also that the inhabitants of the United States shall have liberty to take fish of every kind on such part of the coast of Newfoundland as British fishermen shall use (but not to dry or cure the same on that island), and also on the coasts, bays, and creeks of all other of His Britannic Majesty's dominions in America.

This was a grant or recognition of a property right agreed upon on a consideration, viz, the adjustment of the boundaries and the other engagements into which the United States by that treaty entered. As to the open-sea fishing, it was merely a recognition of a right common to all nations, and as to the fishing within the municipal dominion of His Majesty, on his coasts, bays, and creeks, it was an agreement that these rights theretofore existing in all British subjects should of right belong to those British subjects who by force of the Revolution had become the citizens of an independent nation; and thus it was, in the partition of the territory, a reservation in favor of the people of the United States of a right which they, as British subjects, had theretofore lawfully enjoyed.

From 1783 until the war of 1812 between the two countries, citizens of the United States continued to enjoy the ancient rights belonging to them as subjects of Great Britain before the Revolution and reserved to them as citizens of the United States after it, with the full freedom secured by the article last referred to. During this period of time other subjects of difference and negotiation arose between the two countries which were disposed of by the treaties of 1794, with its explanatory articles, and of 1802; but the fishery provision of 1783 continued to exist unquestioned and apparently as having been, as it plainly purported to be, a treaty disposing of and

adjusting property rights which had become by force of its own operation an executed contract.

The treaty of peace concluded on December 24, 1814, at the close of the war of 1812, provided:

First, for a restoration to each party of all countries, territories, etc., taken by either party during the war, without delay, saving some questions of islands in the bay of Passamaquoddy.

Secondly, it provided for disposition of prizes and prisoners of war. Thirdly, it provided for questions of boundary and dominion regarding certain islands and for the settlement of the northeastern boundary, and also for the northwestern boundary, etc. It made no reference whatever to any question touching the fisheries mentioned in the treaty of 1783.

The commercial treaty concluded on the 3d of July, 1815, between the two countries provided for reciprocal liberty of commerce between all the territories of Great Britain in Europe and the territories of the United States, but left without any new treaty stipulation or obligation commercial intercourse between British dominions in North America and the United States remaining under the exclusive control of each.

But after the conclusion of the treaties following the war of 1812, there being then no treaty obligations or reciprocal laws in force between or in either of the countries respecting commercial intercourse, the British Government set up the pretension that the fishing rights recognized and secured to citizens of the United States by the treaty of 1783 had become abrogated in consequence of the war of 1812, which, on the principle of the war annulling all unexecuted engagements between the two belligerents, it was contended, annulled the fishing rights described in the treaty of 1783, and that the citizens of the United States had, therefore, no longer the right to fish in any of the British North American waters. This pretension led to the conclusion of the treaty of the 20th October, 1818, the fisheries article of which provided that (Article I)

Whereas differences have arisen respecting the liberty, claimed by the United States for the inhabitants thereof, to take, dry, and cuie fish on certain coasts, bays, harbors, and creeks of His Britannic Majesty's dominions in America, it is agreed between the high contracting parties that the inhabitants of the said United States shall have forever, in common with the subjects of His Britannic Majesty, the liberty to take fish of every kind on that part of the southern coast of Newfoundland which extends from Cape Ray to the Rameau Islands; on the western and northern coast of Newfoundland from the said Cape Ray to the Quirpon Islands, on the shores of the Magda en Islands, and also on the coasts, bays, harbors, and creeks from Mount Joly, on the southern coast of Labrador, to and through the Straits of Belle Isle, and thence northwardly indefinitely along the coast, without prejudice, however, to any of the exclusive rights of the Hudson Bay Company: And that the American fishermen shall also have liberty forever to dry and cure fish in any of the unsettled bays, harbors, and creeks of the southern part of the coast of Newfoundland, above described, and of the coast of Labrador; but so soon as the same or any portion thereof shall be settled, it shall not be lawful for the said fishermen to dry or cure fish at such portion so settled without previous agreement for such purpose with the inhabitants, proprietors, or possessors of the ground. And the United States hereby renounce forever any liberty heretofore enjoyed or claimed by the inhabitants thereof to take, dry, or cure fish on or within three marine miles of any of the coasts, bays, creeks, or harbors of His Britannic Majesty's dominions in America not included within the above-mentioned limits: Provided, however, That the American fishermen shall be admitted to enter such bays or harbors for the purpose of shelter and of repairing damages therein, of purchasing wood, and of obtaining water. and for no other purpose whatever. But they shall be under such restrictions as may be necessary to prevent their taking, drying, or curing fish therein, or in any other manner whatever abusing the privileges hereby reserved to them.