III.-NAVIGATION OF THE ST. LAWRENCE.

The President states in his Annual Message (December, 1870) that this river constitutes a material outlet to the ocean for eight States, with an aggregate population of about 17,600,000 inhabitants, and with an aggregate tonnage of 661,367 tons upon the waters which discharge into it.

During the administration of Mr. John Quincy Adams, Mr. Clay demonstrated the natural right of the citizens of the United States to the navigation of this river, claiming that the act of the congress of Vienna, in opening the Rhine and other rivers to all nations, showed the judg ment of European jurists and statesmen that the inhabitants of a country through which a navigable river passes have a natural right to enjoy the navigation of that river to and into the sea, even though passing through the territories of another power. This right does not exclude the co-equal right of the sovereign possessing the territory through which the river debouches into the sea to make such regulations relative to the police of the navigation as may be reasonably necessary; but those regulations should be framed in a liberal spirit of comity, and should not impose needless burdens upon the commerce which has the right of transit. (6 Foreign Relations, folio pages 757 to 777.)

If the claim made by Mr. Clay was just when the population of States bordering on the shores of the lakes was only three million four hundred thousand, it now derives greater force and equity from the increased population, wealth, production, and tonnage of the States on the Canadian frontier. Since Mr. Clay advanced his argument in behalf of our right, the principle for which he contended has been frequently, and by various nations, recognized by law or by treaty, and has been extended to several other great rivers. By the treaty concluded at Mayence, in 1831, the Rhine was declared free from the point where it is first navigable into the sea. By the convention between Spain and Portugal, concluded in 1835, the navigation of the Douro, throughout its whole extent, was made free for the subjects of both crowns. In 1853 the Argentine Confederation, by treaty, threw open the free navigation of the Parana and the Uruguay to the merchant-vessels of all nations. In 1856 the Crimean war was closed by a treaty which provided for the free navigation of the Danube. In 1858 Bolivia, by treaty, declared that it regarded the rivers Amazon and La Plata, in accordance with fixed principles of national law, as highways or channels opened by nature for the commerce of all nations. In 1859 the Paraguay was made free by treaty, and in December, 1866, the Emperor of Brazil, by imperial decree, declared the Amazon to be open, to the frontier of Brazil, to the merchant-ships of all nations. Sir Robert Phillimore, the greatest living British authority on this subject, while asserting the abstract right. of the British claim, says: "It seems difficult to deny that Great Britain may ground her refusal upon strict law; but it is equally difficult to deny, first, that in so doing she exercises harshly an extreme and hard law; secondly, that her conduct with respect to the navigation of the St. Lawrence is in glaring and discreditable inconsistency with her conduct with respect to the navigation of the Mississippi. On the ground

that she possesses a small domain, in which the Mississippi took its rise, she insisted on the right to navigate the entire volume of its waters. On the ground that she possesses both banks of the St. Lawrence where it disembogues itself into the sea, she denies to the United States the right of navigation, though about half the waters of Lakes Ontario, Erie, Huron, and Superior, and the whole of Lake Michigan, through which the river flows, are the property of the United States." (See Phillimore's International Law, vol. 1, page 167 et seq., where the authorities are collected and reviewed.)

The canals in aid of the lake and Saint Lawrence navigation are: 1. The Sault Ste. Marie Canal, in the dominions of the United States. Vessels between Lake Huron and Lake Superior must pass through this canal. 2. The Saint Clair Canal, in the dominions of the United States, which is a deepening of the channel to the depth of fourteen feet. 3. The Welland Canal, in British dominions, from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. 4. Several canals between Lake Ontario and tidewater, in the aggregate about forty miles in length. 5. The canal between Lake Champlain and the river Saint Lawrence. Neither of the Canadian canals have at present the capacity of the American canals.

1870, July 12.

A confidential memorandum was submitted by Great Britain as the basis of proposed arrangements on the subject of the navigation of the Saint Lawrence, and other inland waters of British North America, &c. This was in substance as follows: That if a satis factory reciprocity-treaty could be made, the United States should be restored to the enjoyment of the fisheries as under the old reciprocitytreaty; and also to the navigation of the inland waters of Canada; provided, further, that like permission in the United States should be granted to Canada. Canada was also willing to further agree to enlarge and improve the access to the ocean, provided she could have assurance of the permanency of the arrangement for reciprocity. The proposal further contemplated throwing open the coasting-trade to each party; reciprocal patent and copyright laws; arrangements for a reciprocal transit trade; extension of the provisions of the extradition treaties, and a re-adjustment of the Canadian excise-duty.

No steps were taken in the direction of carrying out these suggestions. The present importance of some of these points may be estimated from the following tables for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1869:

736

Rideau and Ottawa..

406, 789

605

57, 713

8, 027

520, 491

751

70, 707

6, 341

464, 502

1, 161 30

8, 778

591, 198

Total Canadian vessels

4, 709 97

27, 688

2, 420, 931

5, 333

571, 998

3, 239

374, 415

12

2, 669

36, 272

3,370, 013

30, 688 26

IV.-RECIPROCAL TRADE BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND

THE DOMINION OF CANADA.

1845.

Previously to 1845 the trade of the United States and other nations with the British provinces of Canada and others north and east of the United States was burdened with a system of differen tial duties which discriminated against foreign importations in favor of British to such an extent as to prevent any extensive importations into those provinces from the United States.

Under these circumstances our exports, which, for the four years preceding the reciprocity-treaty, averaged about eleven millions of dollars per annum, did not average, for the period extending from 1821 to 1844, four millions per annum. (Estimated from table 3, 1st division, H. R. Ex. Doc., 38th Cong., 1st sess.)

In 1845 the British government changed their colonial commercial policy by authorizing the Canadian legislature to regulate their own tariff. In 1846 the Canadian legislature removed the existing differential duties, and admitted American manufactures and foreign goods, purchased in the American markets, on the same terms as those from Great Britain. This change gave a considerable impetus to importa tions from the United States, so that by the years 1851-52-'53 they were upward of twelve, ten and a half, and thirteen millions of dollars, respectively. (S. Ex. Doc. No. 1, 32d Cong., 1st sess., p. 85.) (Estimated from table 3, 1st division, H. R. Ex. Doc., 38th Cong., 1st sess.).

1849.

A proposition for a reciprocal relaxation of commercial restric tions between the United States and the British North American provinces was presented by Mr. John F. Crampton, the chargé d'affaires of Great Britain, in a note of the 22d March, 1849, which, with the correspondence to which it led, is to be found in the congressional documents.

1850.

President Taylor's message, transmitting this correspondence to the House of Representatives, submits to Congress the expediency of effecting an arrangement for a free trade between the United States and the provinces in their natural productions, providing, also, for the free navigation of the Saint Lawrence and of the canals connecting it with the lakes.

1846.

1848.

Mr. Packenham, the British minister, had, in 1846, commu nicated with the Secretary of the Treasury, (Hon. Robert J. Walker,) who immediately submitted the matter to the Government; and Mr. Crampton again brought the subject before him in 1848, in consequence of which a bill was drawn up by Mr. Grinnell of the Committee on Commerce of the House of Representa tives, and its adoption recommended by the Secretary of the Treasury in a letter to that committee of 1st of May, 1848. The bill was passed by the House of Representatives, but was not voted upon that session by the Senate. (Ex. Doc. No. 64, H. R., 31st Cong., 1st session.)

1849.

Mr. Crampton, on the 25th of June, 1849, wrote to the Sec retary of State, Mr. Clayton, inclosing a memorandum drawn up by Hon. William Hamilton Merritt, one of the Canadian cabinet, sent to Washington to ascertain the decision of the United States. The

memorandum reviews the efforts made by the provincial government, and the notice given by Hon. Mr. Robinson, in the provincial parliament, of an address to the Queen, praying for a return to protection, &c., incloses copy of a letter from Mr. Grinnell, of the Committee on Commerce, to Hon. R. J. Walker, and Mr. Walker's reply meets objections to reciprocity, and elaborates considerations in favor of it.

Mr. Grinnell to Mr. Walker, April 28, 1848, asks his views on reciprocal free trade in the articles of the growth or production of the provinces and the United States, respectively.

1848.

Mr. McC. Young replies for Mr. Walker, warmly approving it. The Canadian bill on the subject is given, and is said to be the exact counterpart of the bill before Congress.

1849.

Mr. Clayton wrote to Mr. Crampton 26th June, 1849, in reply to his note of the day before, which inclosed the memorandum made by Mr. Merritt. As a measure affecting the revenue, the proposed arrangement would be referred to Congress, before whom a copy of the papers would be laid. Refers, as furnishing a British example for this, to Mr. Bancroft's efforts to negotiate at London a commercial treaty, in 1847, when the necessity of a similar reference to Parliament was pointed out to him; and to the failure of the reciprocity-bill in the Senate, after considerable debate, when a bare majority would have carried it, as an indication that a treaty having the same objects in view could not be expected to obtain the requisite majority of two-thirds. (Ho. Reps. Ex. Doc. No. 64, 31st Congress, 1st session.)

1851, Dec. 2.

President Fillmore's annual message of 2d December, 1851, invites the attention of Congress to the question of reciprocal trade with British provinces; states that overtures for a convention have been made, but suggests that it is preferable that the subject should be regulated by reciprocal legislation. Documents submitted showing the offer of British government, and measures it may adopt, if some arrangement on this subject is not made.

1 851.

The accompanying papers were: Note of March, 1851, from Sir H. L. Bulwer to Mr. Webster, inclosing copy of letter of 6th January, 1851, from Mr. F. Hincks, inspector-general of customs, Canada, to Hon. R. McLane, chairman of Committee on Commerce, House of Representatives. Sir H. L. Bulwer thinks that the Canadians consider that their application for an interchange of agricultural products has failed because they have generously, without stipulations, conceded many commercial advantages which it was in their power to bestow; and that their only mode of securing desired privileges is to revoke concessions made. His attention had been drawn to two resolutions which passed the Senate on the subject, which he was told would have passed the House if proposed to that body.

Proposes entering into a negotiation.

Mr. Hincks, in his letter to Mr. McLane, recites the important changes which have occurred in the colonial policy of Great Britain concerning the regulation of commercial matters, and the removal of differenti al duties from American productions; that had Canada at that time stip ulated that in return for her admission of American manufactures, the duties should be removed from her products, it would have been the interest of the United States to have agreed to it. No such proposition, however, was made; and the very important concession scarcely attracted attention in the United States. Describes the important results in the increased demand for American productions in the pro vinces, and the hardship of Canadian raw products, sent to the United States, being burdened with high duties. Urges with much force and