The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-03-13

the High Commission, we beg to offer a
suggestion.
Our colonial friends have some valuable
bituminous coal mines in Nova Scotia and
New Brunswick, only partially worked,
owing to want of market. We think well
of admitting their coal free of duty. But
there is go much objection to repeal OF the
existing tariff on this commodity, that the
duty still stands and is likely to stand. sup
pose now the High Commission, while it is
on this branch of its business, should make
the proposition to offset the duties we now
collect, against the right of fishing every
where. Let us fish wherever we like and we
will admit Nova Scotia coal free of duty.
This is fair bargain; and if anything is to
be paid for a privilege that really belongs to
ms now. we insist it shall be no more than
this. And we cannot help believing such an
arrangement would be satisfactory on the
British side The right to fish on the ocean
is O right belonging to everybody, and it is
sheer impudence to undertake to restrict it.
In former times, when it was the fashion to
keep convenient pretexts for war always on
hand to be used as occasion required, this
fishing question held prominent place. If Eng
land and France, during the long years when
they were contending for mastery on this
W6I0 6N6E ~ u lOSb lOI u uuhEEol,
this question, in some one of its Protean
forms, could always be counted upon to fur
nish the desired provocation.
The present agitation of the subject is but
arelic of past tradition. 1t is an absurdity
from beginning to end. Why should not
any man and every man traversing the open
sea be at liberty to cast q line and catch a
fish when and where he willP The sea is the
highway of nations, and whatever swims
g. IL, i'll. &c - of
them, but of all. The ocean is but one vast
common, where all have equal rights and all
should roam at will. The idea of there
being any private or national property in its
hidden fnny tribes is simple presump ption.
1t was only when England claimed to own
and rule the seas that such pretension could
be endure ed for an instant. But that day has
forever gone, and now let all the rubbish of
such claim perish with it.
If nations desire to preserve the three
mile line from the actual confguration Of the
coast, by way of a convenient skirt to their
jurisdictional limits, SO be it. But let the
claim be construed to cover cases of substan-
tial consequence only, such, for example, as
the conflicts of belligerents. For every
peaceable purpose, let the use of the
open seas, wherever they are navigable, be
free and unabridged to all the world. We
should be glad if the High Commission
past and assert this principle as their guide.
Let them not try to erect anew the starch and
buckram fences which have been put up on
the ocean in the past, and which guard no.
body and guide nobody, and serve only as
traps to the nnwary mariner who EFFORTS his
scant subsistence from the treacherous depths
of the sea. These technical and suppositi-
tious boundaries, which cannot be seen, are
but a snare in the hands of the idle wicked
to catch the laborious poor. They deserve
no consideration from men who are repre-
sentatives of the people, and not mere in
struments Of arbitrary Governments, as ne
gotiators of old in too many cases were apt
to be.
In proposing the compensation we do for
the REIMBURSEMENT of an unfounded preten-
sion, we think we go far enough. We pro-
test against that superfuity of generosity
which would go further and pay money for q
claim intrinsically not worth considering, and
which, at best, is but convenient pretext
to extort concessions which can be neither
claimed nor obtained upon any fair grounds
whatever.