CHAP. V] TREATY RELATIONS 1107
officers, whether their authority emanated directly from the
Queen or from her representative, the Governor-General.
The jurisdiction thus exercised could not therefore be
properly described, in the language used by Mr. Bayard, as
a supposed, and therefore questionable, delegation of juris-
diction by the Imperial Government of Great Britain.
Her Majesty governed in Canada as well as in Great Britain ;
the officers of Canada were her officers; the statutes of
Canada were her statutes based on the advice of her Parlia-
ment sitting in Canada. It was, moreover, an error to
conceive that, because the United States and Great Britain
were in the first instance the contracting parties to the
Treaty of 1818, no question arising under that treaty could
be ‘ responsibly dealt with ’ either by the Parliament or by
the executive authorities of the Dominion. The raising of
the objection was the more remarkable as the Government
of the United States had long been aware of the necessity
of reference to the Colonial Legislatures in matters affecting
their interests. The Treaties of 1854 and 1871 expressly pro-
vided that, so far as they concerned the fisheries or trade
relations with the provinces, they should be subject to rati-
fication by their several Legislatures, and seizures of American
vessels and acts followed by condemnation for breach of the
Provincial Customs Laws had been made for forty years
without protest or objection on the part of the United States
(tovernment.
In a note from Mr. Phelps to Lord Iddesleigh, of Septem-
ber 11, 1886,! no exception was taken to this view.
The question rose again in 1891-2 in connexion with the
proposed arbitration as to certain questions of rights on
the French shore. The French Government endeavoured to
insist that all legislation and executive action for enforcing
the award should be taken by the Imperial Parliament.
This claim Lord Salisbury absolutely declined to admit.
France was entitled, he held, to exact the punctual perform-
ance of the treaty obligation of Great Britain, but had no
authority to insist on any special method?
* Parl, Pap., C. 4937, p. 120. ® Parl. Pap., C. 6703, p. 47.
