The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-04-21
The Underplots OF the Washington
Treaty-Canada Draws tho First

AT the present rate Of travelling the Treaty
of Washington looks as though it would rival
that stultifed performance, the tragedy of
Hamlet with Hamlet left out by special re-
quest All the minor parts of the diplomatic
masterpiece are filed, and several scenes Of the
underplot are being performed with varying
success. The San Juan boundary is being
played to limited imperial audience at Ber-
lin. The British claims have been convulsing
The fishery clause has drawn excited audiences
at Cape Cod, with intenudes, in which Ben
Butler played solo on fog horn in the House
| Of Representatives Across the Canadian
border, too the three-mile-limit burletta has
been performed with striking effect by
chorus of Blue Noses, with the Governor Gene
raj, Lord Lisgar, as the effective Masaniello.
With these small announcements in view, it is
painful to reflect that the absorbing action Of
the main plot, with its lurid fires Of burning
ships in mid-ocean, grave judgment on mo-
mentous questions by the Grand Inquisitors at
Geneva, all to end in Columbia and Britannia
being completely reconciled to each other, is
in fair way to be left unplayed. When, too,
we consider how capitally the final tableau
was conceived by the high joint authors the
present bitches in the great consequential
damage scene become peculiarly Notifying.
As we understood it in America it was as fol-
lows:-As the Grand Inquisitors, Adams,
Oockburn, Scelopis, Staempfe and Gajuba, con-
clude the arbitration chorus with breakdown
d rAfricaine Columbia and Britannia join
hands across miniature Atlantic Ocean. At
this moment number of English steamers
appear on the ocean, heading for America,
laden to the waters edge with British gold at
the same time an American steamer first ap-
pearance) heads for England, laden with five
cent nickels, to make good show. Kaiser
Wilhelm now advances and decides the
boundary question in favor Of America, while
our ishermen's schooners are seen swarming
in the distance and hooking cod and haddock
at the very doors of the Kanucks. Red, white
and blue fres-curtain. The present outlook
is, therefore, discouraging; and since Miss
Britannia swears that the consequential dam
age scene must be left out, and Miss Columbia
says she'll be consequentially damaged first,
the bewildered managers in our State Depart
ment and the English Foreign Office have our
profound sympathy.
We can console ourselves by.looking at the
fishery clause as it has worked on both sides Of
the border On our side, after much clamor
against making the clause q law, the subject
seems to have resolved itself into vague
sort of assurance that when the law goes into
effect our fishermen shall receive bounty to
compensate for their actual losses by the work.
ing of the treaty. On the other side of the
border, the Dominion government found fault
with the whole affair." because the claims
against Great Britain for Fenian invasions had
been excluded from the treaty, and there was
no commercial compensation for the loss their
fishermen were to sustain in the working of
the fishery clause 1t will be seen, then, that
the fishermen on both sides are to be injured
by the action of the treaty-something which
is puzzle to the ordinary mind. On the
Fenian claims the Canadians have been more
successful Finding themselves in fair way
to be sacrificed on the altar of arbitntion by
England-which, like Artemus Ward, is
always ready to generously sacrifice its
dearest relatives-the Canadians objected
Justify. If they went to the slaughter
they were determined to open their mouths.
From the correspondence laid before the
Dominion Parliament on Thursday last, and
printed elsewhere, we learn the devious diplo-
matte ways through which these impor-
tant International Goldfish and Fenan raid
questions were brought to solution. The
Fenian claims had been rejected by the Joint
High Commission, which, wrote Lord Kimber-
ley on the 18th of last June, twas nothing
more than was to be expected" He then very
adroitly proceeds to argue why the Dominion
government should, in the interest of
harmony, allow the Americans to fish in their
waters in the coming season. He regrets that
| the United States would not renew the Reel
| procity Treaty of 1854, but gives them grain
of hope-deferred comfort in his sapient opinion
that the United States is drifting so fast to free
trade that reciprocity treaty would soon be
su,eriuity. How far this comical chaff could
catch such old birds as Sir John A. Macdonald
we can dimly surmise, but Lord Kimberley
said something more to the purpose, which
lOOKer-ou UlSHI tuHk very PatIouiz,nS, AoI W
say insulting 1t was as follows :"Canada
cannot reasonably expect that England should
for an indefinite period incur constant risk Of
serious misunderstanding with tho United
States imperilling, perhaps, the peace of the
whole empire, in order to force the American
government to change its commercial policy"
The Canadian government resented this pa
tcrnal treatment in a mild way refusing to al
low the Americans to fish, and recounting the
unpopularity of the treaty. Then came
proposition. They wished to meet the views of
the imperial government, of course and as they
had made an agreement with British Co.
lumbia to construct Pacific Railroad,