Office of the Historian

[Untitled]

[undated.]

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 judgment 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 [Page 290] 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 Well and 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 satisfactory reciprocity-treaty could be made, the United States should be restored to the enjoyment of the fisheries as under the old reciprocity-treaty; 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:

I.— Tm-norta into Oupheo, and, Ontario.

Place. Total imports of foreign goods. Foreign goods—
Not the produce of the United States, imported via the United States. The produce of the United States, imported from the United States.
Quebec $29,545,177 $6,890,207 $6,170,078
Ontario 23,724,764 4,855,831 14,592,575
Total 53,269,941 11,746,038 20,762,653
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II.—Statement showing the number, national character, and tonnage (computed from aggregate number of trips made during the season of navigation) of vessels which passed on and through the Wetland, St. Lawrence, Chambly, Burlington Bay, Rideau and Ottawa Canals, St. Our’s and St. Ann’s Locks, during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1869, and amount of tolls collected thereon.

[Compiled from the Canadian Almanac for 1871.]

Vessels. From Canadian to Canadian ports. From Canadian to American ports. From American to Canadian ports. From American to American ports. Total. Amount of tolls on vessels.
Number. Tons. Number. Tons. Number. Tons. Number. Tons. Number. Tons.
canadian vessels and steamers.
Welland 1,888 269,413 673 135,100 707 140,878 10 2,628 3,278 548,019 $11,044 02
St. Lawrence 10,096 988,790 1,328 122,166 572 48,182 2 41 11,998 1,159,179 8,888 34
Chambly and St. Our’s Lo 851 45,086 1,816 159,950 1,768 152,905 4,435 357,941 4,258 56
Burlington Bay 1,090 190,362 160 26,362 192 32,450 1,442 249,174 626 07
St. Ann’s Lock 5,736 406,789 605 57,713 6,341 464,502 1,161 30
Rideau and Ottawa 8,027 520,491 751 70,707 8,778 591,198 4,709 97
Total Canadian vessels 27,688 2,420,931 5,333 571,998 3,239 374,415 12 2,669 36,272 3,370,013 30,688 26
american vessels and steamers.
Welland 12 1,503 307 31,022 356 51,966 2,116 634,941 2,791 719,432 17,386 90
St. Lawrence 5 108 124 7,239 75 4,656 146 3,468 350 15,471 90 17
Chambly and St. Our’s Lock 5 223 501 35,575 496 35,308 8 601 1,010 71,707 895 71
Burlington Bay 1 104 13 1,189 15 102 1,242 29 2,535 6 26
St. Ann’s Lock 102 7,347 102 7,313 204 14,660 36 65
Rideau and Ottawa 100 7,187 93 6,703 193 13,890 104 19
Total American vessels 123 9,125 1,038 81,728 1,044 100,519 2,372 646,323 4,577 837,695. 18,519 88
Grand total Canadian and American 27,811 2,430,056 6,731 653,726 4,283 474,934 2,384 648,992 40,349 4,207,708 49,208 14