RECIPROCITY TREATY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume V, Issue 236, 3 February 1855, Page 5

RECIPROCITY TREATY.

{From the London " Times.") Few events of this year, even though the list should include a brilliant victory, will leave greater occasion for true and permanent satisfaction than the completion of what is termed the Reciprocity Treaty between this country and the United States. A. copy of this document we yesterday published, and, though its terms and provisions may have appeared uninteresting enough to the general reader, it is scarcely possible to overrate the promise of so wise a convention. In place of a source of discord and collision we obtain a source of amity and good will; in place of temptations to strife, we acquire additional securities for peace ; and questions have at length been advantageously settled which have for years engendered uneasiness, and might at any moment have occasioned war. Before the American Revolution, when the whole seaboard of those countries appertained to Great Britain, the inhabitants of what are now the United States enjoyed, of course, equal rights with the population of New Brunswick and Canada as respected the fisheries in those parts. As all were British subjects, all possessed common privileges in British dominions, nor did it signify in what waters or off what coasts tlip fishermen of this or that port exercised their calling. But when the resistance ot the 2few Englanders to the legislation of the Imperial Parliament was consummated by the recognition of the United States of America as independent communities a distinction of rights immediately arose. The Americans, as they began exclusively to be termed, being no longer British subjects, had no longer any title to fish in British waters, while, on the other'hand, the inhabitants of those more northern colonies which still remained in allegiance to the British Crows had no privileges within the territories which had just been declared independent. A severance, in short, of possessions and advantages : had taken place, and the lights of the British colonists in North America became completely dissociated from those of the ciiizsns of the United States. It happened, however, that. wLjle the superiority in many respects resided with -the ciuztns of the Union, the c,ase was otherwise as le^iirird the fisheries. The best fisheries were those oft" the coast of the British colonies, and the United States 1 fishermen experienced a considerable deprivation in the loss of these well-stocked waters. Accordingly, from the earliest time succeeding the Revolution, the desire of recovering these advantages displayed itself, and squabbles, adjustments, encroachments, and bargains incessantly followed upon each other. Latterly a serious difference of opinion existed between British and American statesmen i.s to the interpretation which should be put upon a clause of a certain instrument defining the right of American fishermen. The article stated that they were not to approach within three miles of a bay. This provision was understood in this to mean that tlie Americans should uni come within a distance of three miles from the Jine joining headland to headland, whereas the Americans claimed to reckon the said distance from the shores of the bay itself at any point of its circumference. Certain spots consequently existed where the American fishermen conceived themselves entitled to ,fish, but where our colonists regarded them as intruders, and, as the views of both these parties were supported by their respective Government, there was evidently a constant risk of collision. In the matter of argument anil in point of law we could not hesitate to maintain that the British Government was in iheri»ht,but the temptation ti> the N. England

fishermen was so strong, and so incessantly operative, and the interests of so large a class involved in the dispute, that the American Government was compelled to persist in its contest for the privileges desired. Meantime, too, while diplomatists were wrangling and statesmen protesting, the question was being perpetually pushed to a practical issue by the fishermen themselves. The Americans trespassed, the British resisted; armed vessels of both Governments were commissioned to support the rights of the litigating powers, and an inconsiderate word or a precipitate resolution might any day have caused an exchange of cannon-shot. It is barely two years since a serious collision between Great Britain and America on this question was believed to be actually imminent. The reader will now understand the liabilities from which both Governments have been relieved. The" Reciprocity Treaty" is a convention admitting British subjects on the one part, and American citizens on the other, to the enjoymeut of advantages thereby reciprocally conceded. The Americans are to get the longsought liberty of fishing in British waters, white the colonists are to partake of the like privilege in American waters. Here the gain is evidently on the American side, inasmuch as they have little to give in proportion to what they take; but other important articles follow. A great number of commodities, including grain, flour, and breadstuff's of all kinds, fresh and cured meats, fish of all lands, cotton, wool, and vegetables, are to be admitted from each country into the other, respectively free of duty, so that the British colonies obtaiu a most valuable market for their produce. In addition to this, the river St. Lawrence and the Canadian canals, used as communications between the great lakes and the Atlantic, are to be opened to the navigation of the Americans, while Lake Michigan is to be opened in like manner to Britisli subjects—a right, however, being reserved'of suspending hereafter the operation of these concessions upon due notice given.