CHAPTER VI.

COMMERCIAL INTERCOURSE AND TRANSPORTATION.

TREATY PROVISIONS.

SUNDRY stipulations of the Treaty which relate to rights of navigation, and of transport by land or water, -to concessions of commercial intercourse and transit, or to the free interchange of objects of produc tion, are divisible into, first, permanent provisions, and, secondly, temporary provisions.

1. Of permanent provisions we have the following: [a] Great Britain engages that the navigation of the River St. Lawrence, ascending and descending, from the point where it ceases to form the boundary between the two countries, shall forever remain free and open for the purpose of commerce to the citizens of the United States [Art. XXVI.].

The United States engage that the Rivers Yukon, Porcupine, and Stikine, in Alaska, ascending and descending from, to, and into the sea, shall forever remain free and open for the purpose of commerce to the subjects of Great Britain [Art. XXVI.].

Rights of local police and regulation are reserved by each Government.

[6] The United States engage that the subjects

Q

of Great Britain shall enjoy the use of the St. Clair Flats' Canal on terms of equality with the inhabitants of the United States [Art. XXVII.].

[c] The United States engage to urge on the State Governments, and Great Britain engages to urge on the Dominion of Canada, to secure each to the subjects or citizens of the other the use on equal terms of the several canals connected with the lakes or riv ers traversed by or contiguous to the boundary-line between the possessions of the high contracting Par ties [Art. XXVII.].

All these are provisions which bring the United States and the Dominion of Canada into fixed rela tions independent of and superior to all questions of Governments.

2. Of temporary provisions we have the following: [a] The navigation of Lake Michigan is declared free and open for the purposes of commerce to the subjects of Great Britain [Art. XXVIII.].

[] Goods, wares, and merchandise arriving at the ports of New York, Boston, Portland, or such other ports as the President may designate, and destined for the British possessions in North America, may be entered at the proper custom-house without payment of duties, and conveyed in transit through the territory of the United States [Art. XXIX.].

And, in like manner, goods, wares, and merchandise arriving at any of the ports of the British possessions in North America, and destined for the United States, may be entered at the proper custom house, and conveyed in transit without the payment of duties

pay.

through the said possessions; and goods, wares, and merchandise may be conveyed in transit without ment of duties, from the United States through the said possessions to other places in the United States, or for export from ports in the said possessions [Art. XXIX.].

All these rights of transit are, of course, subject to such regulations for the protection of the revenue as the respective Governments may prescribe.

[e] Great Britain engages to urge on the Dominion of Canada and the Province of New Brunswick that no export duty or other duty shall be levied on tim ber cut in that part of the American territory in the State of Maine watered by the River St. John and its tributaries, and floated down that river to the sea, when the same is shipped to the United States from the Province of New Brunswick.

[d] Subjects of Great Britain may carry in British vessels, without payment of duty, goods, wares, or merchandise from one port or place within the terri tory of the United States upon the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes, and the rivers connecting the same, to another port or place within the territory of the United States, provided that a portion of such transportation is made through the Dominion of Canada by land carriage and in bond [Art. XXX.].

Citizens of the United States may carry in United States vessels goods, wares, or merchandise from one port or place within the British possessions in North America to another port or place within the said possessions, provided that a portion of such transpor

244

THE TREATY OF WASHINGTON.

tation is made through the territory of the United States by land carriage and in bond [Art. XXX.].

The United States engage not to impose any export duties on goods, wares, or merchandise carried under this article through the territory of the United States; and Great Britain engages to urge the Dominion of Canada and the other British Colonies not to impose any export duty on goods, wares, or merchandise carried under this article.

It being understood that these respective rights of transit are to be regulated by the two Governments; and that on the part of the United States the right of transit will be suspended unless the Dominion of Canada should establish the exemption from export duties required, and unless the Dominion shall open its canals on equal terms to citizens of the United States, and unless the Dominion and the Province of New Brunswick shall free from all duties the timber cut on the St. John in the State of Maine and export. ed to the United States [Arts. XXX. and XXXI.].

All the provisions of the Treaty from Articles XVIII. to XXI. inclusive, and Article XXX.,-that is to say, the articles regarding the fisheries and recip rocal right of transit,-are to take effect so soon as the laws required to carry them into operation shall have been passed by the Parliament of Great Britain, by that of Canada, and by the Legislature of Prince Ed. ward's Island, on the one hand, and by the Congress of the United States on the other.

Such assent having been given, such articles shall remain in force for the period of ten years from the

date at which they may come into operation, and further until the expiration of two years after either of the Parties shall have given to the other notice of its desire to terminate the same: which either may give at the end of the said ten years or at any time after ward [Art. XXXIII].

Temporary as these provisions are, or at least ter minable at the will of either Party, they are equitable in themselves, and advantageous both to the United States and the Canadian Dominion; and, like the permanent provisions of the Treaty explained in this chapter, they tend to draw the two countries closer and closer together.

The germ of the Treaty of Washington, it is to be remembered, was the suggestion of the British Government through Sir John Rose, a former Canadian Minister, whose proposal related only to pending questions affecting the British possessions in North America, not Great Britain herself.

What these questions were we partly understand by the stipulations of the Treaty, the whole of which, except those growing out of incidents of the late Civil War, are of interest to Canada, including the maritime Provinces primarily if not exclusively, although re quiring to be treated in the name of Great Britain.

To the arrangements actually made, Canada would have preferred, of course, revival of the Elgin-Marcy Reciprocity Treaty, involving the admission into each country, free of duty, of numerous articles, being the growth and produce of the British Colonies or of the United States. It was the desire of Canada to have