1106 ADMINISTRATION AND LEGISLATION [part V
operation of treaties which were concluded at a time when
responsible government was not known.!
The question of the relation of the Imperial and Colonial
Governments with regard to the interpretation and the
enforcement of treaties was raised in 1886 in connexion
with the discussion of the rights of the American fishermen
in Canadian waters.
In a note of May 10, 1886,% addressed to Sir Lionel West,
Mr. Bayard, in discussing the question, wrote, * The Treaty
of 1818 is between two nations, the United States of America
and Great Britain, who, as the contracting parties, can alone
apply authoritative interpretation thereto or enforce its
provisions by appropriate legislation.” He went on to urge
that the seizure of certain vessels by the Canadian authorities
“would appear to have been made under a supposed delega-
tion of jurisdiction by the Imperial Government of Great
Britain, and to be intended to include authority to interpret
and enforce the provisions of 1818, to which, as I have
remarked, the United States and Great Britain are the
contracting parties, who can alone deal responsibly with
questions arising thereunder’. In a dispatch of July 23,
18863 to Sir Lionel West, which was communicated on
August 2 to Mr. Bayard, Lord Rosebery communicated to
the United States Government a report of the Privy Council
of Canada on the question. In that report it was pointed out
that the authority of the Legislatures of the Provinces, and,
after federation, of the Parliament of Canada, to make enact-
ments to enforce the provisions of the Convention, rested
on well-known constitutional principles. The Legislatures
existed, as did the Parliament of Canada, by the authority
of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland, and the Colonial statutes had received the sanc-
tion of the British sovereign, who, and not the nation, was
actually the party with whom the United States made the
Convention. The officers who were engaged in enforcing the
Acts of Canada or the laws of the Empire were Her Majesty’s
Cf. Xeith, State Succession, p. 21 ; Westlake, International Law, i. 67.
Parl. Pap., C. 4937, p. 37. 3 Thid., p. 85.
