In some measure growing out of this controversy was a third, relating to the line from Lubec Channel to the sea. For about half of this distance the channel now and for many years in use is a dredged channel, created and maintained at the expense of the United States. Through this it was proposed and agreed at Washington to run the boundary line. Previous to the making of this there was a more or less complete and satisfactory natural channel, through which all vessels passed. It was crooked, and was, for the most part, much nearer the Canadian shore than the present channel. It has now largely filled up and disappeared; the principal current having been diverted into the new channel. In running the boundary line through the latter a much more even and, in the judgment of the American Commissioner, a much more just division of the water area was secured, but it was discovered to have the locally serious disadvantage of throwing to the Canadian side certain fishing weirs which had been maintained practically in the same spot for many years and which were mostly owned and operated by American citizens, resident in the town of Lubec. It is true, as suggested in an earlier part of this paper, that their continued occupation had been stoutly resisted by the Canadians, and serious conflict had once or twice arisen. There was, of course, a certain amount of reason in demanding a line following the old channel, which undoubtedly was the only channel, when the original treaty was made. Adherence to the well-founded principle of equal division of water areas, however, was thought to be wiser and more just by the representative of the United States, even if it required the surrender of a few comparatively valueless fishing-privileges, the right to which was of very doubtful origin. Those who thought they would suffer in this way made strong appeals to the Department of State and a claim for the old channel was afterwards embodied in the propositions made by the United States.
The differences between the Commissioners regarding the three points above referred to were the only differences that were at all serious, and these, it is believed, might have been removed had they enjoyed absolute freedom and full power of adjustment. Thus restricted, the Commissioners could not and did not come to an agreement. At their meeting on December 30th, 1894, the American Commissioner submitted three propositions, to any one of which he was willing to subscribe. The first proposed the entire line as originally laid down in Washington, with an additional section throwing Pope’s Folly Island into the United States; the second suggested a literal interpretation of the Convention of July 22nd, 1892, restricting the marking to three lines “in front of and adjacent to Eastport”; the third recommended an agreement on portions of the line, with alternative propositions as to Pope’s Folly and Lubec Channel, to be afterwards determined by such methods as the two governments might agree upon. None of these was acceptable to the British Commissioner and in turn he submitted five propositions, none of which was satisfactory to the representative of the United States. They all involved non-action as to Pope’s Folly Island, but included action favorable to Canadian interests below Lubec.