711.428/1228½

Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State (Castle)

Mr. Hickerson: I discussed this matter yesterday of the sock eye salmon treaty with the Canadian Minister. He feels very strongly that the situation is so serious that something should be done, if possible, in the next session of Congress. Of course, in this I agree. I pointed out to him that, as he well knew, the difficulty came from the unwillingness of the Governor of Washington to put through any treaty which did not make it certain that the State of Washington would be prominently represented. The Minister said that he felt quite sure that his Government would not wish to confine the choice of commissioners to any particular locality because they would want to appoint on the commission the best experts possible. I said that I understood this, although I felt the natural thing to do would be to appoint people from British Columbia and Washington. I told him that we were studying the treaty now and that we felt it was correct along general lines, that we also agreed that some action was very necessary and that I hoped we might be able to get it in shape to present to Congress so that a decision might be made. The Minister said that he would not suppose that a single Senator, talking for local reasons, would be able to hold it up. I told him that if the single Senator opposing it happened to be from Florida, the Senate might well feel that the question primarily was for the State of Washington, but that, therefore, any strong opposition from Senator Jones would be effective in the Senate. I told him, however, that if we decided to send the treaty to the Senate, as it was hoped we would, we should, of course, talk the matter over with Senator Jones before it went up.

W[illiam] R. C[astle]