711.428/1396
The Secretary of State to President Hoover
The President: The undersigned, the Secretary of State, has the honor to lay before the President, with a view to its transmission to the Senate to receive the advice and consent of that body to its ratification, if his judgment approve thereof, a convention between the United States of America and His Majesty the King of Great Britain, Ireland and the British dominions beyond the seas, Emperor of India, in respect of the Dominion of Canada, for the protection, preservation and extension of the sockeye salmon fisheries of the Fraser River system, signed by the Secretary of State and the Minister of Canada, at Washington on May 26, 1930.
This convention is in substitution of the convention for the protection, preservation and extension of the sockeye salmon fisheries of the Fraser River system, signed by the Secretary of State and the Minister of Canada on March 27, 1929,12 which was sent to the Senate by the President on April 18, 1929, and was returned by the Senate to the President by Resolution of December 13, 1929.
The necessity for the revision of the 1929 convention was seen in the fact that during the summer of 1929, subsequent to its signature, fishermen, for the first time, took large quantities of sockeye salmon in the Pacific Ocean beyond territorial waters of the United States and Canada. It became apparent from the success of that fishery that the sockeye salmon fisheries in the Fraser River, Georgia Strait, Juan de Fuca Strait and contiguous waters cannot be adequately protected and developed unless the fishery on the high seas is controlled. There are included, therefore, in the waters covered by the new convention, the territorial waters off the western coasts of the United States and Canada between the 48th and 49th parallels of north latitude, and likewise the high seas of the Pacific Ocean adjacent to these territorial waters between the same parallels, in addition to the Fraser River and the boundary waters between the United States and Canada which were embraced in the convention signed in 1929.
The authority which the convention gives to the International Pacific Salmon Fisheries Commission to limit or prohibit fishing on the high seas and to prescribe the size of the mesh of gear that may be used on the high seas is, of course, applicable to nationals and inhabitants [Page 505] and vessels and boats of the United States and of Canada only, as are the provisions of the convention in regard to the arrest and detention of violators of the prohibition against fishing on the high seas covered by Article IX of the convention.
Other points of difference between the convention signed on March 27, 1929, and the present convention are that there is omitted from the latter the provision that the Commissioner of Fisheries of the United States shall be one of the members of the Commission; that it is specifically provided by the new convention that the commissioners appointed by each of the High Contracting Parties shall hold office during the pleasure of the Contracting Party by which they were appointed; and that instead of the limitation by dates of the period of the year within which the International Pacific Salmon Fisheries Commission might limit or prohibit fishing, which was provided in Article IV of the convention signed on March 27, 1929, the new convention contains a provision under which the Commission is at liberty to limit or prohibit the fishing in the waters of the United States, Canada and the high seas, respectively, for such periods as may be required by the particular conditions of each year. The greater flexibility in regulation thus provided, as well as the extension of authority of the Commission to regulate fishing for sockeye salmon by American and Canadian fishermen and fishing vessels on the high seas, will enable the Commission to so regulate the fisheries that there will be, as nearly as possible, an equal division of the catch between the fishermen of the United States and Canada.
By Article V of the convention now submitted the Commission is given authority to regulate the size of meshes in salmon fishing gear used on the high seas by American and Canadian fishermen and fishing vessels at any season of the year, in addition to the authority given to the Commission in the Convention of 1929 to regulate the size of meshes in fishing gear used in national waters of the two countries during the spring or Chinook salmon fishing season.
Respectfully submitted,