The other question was that which related to the common rights of fishing to be enjoyed by the citizens and subjects of the two high contracting parties along the Atlantic coast. The eighteenth article of the Treaty provided that the inhabitants of the United States should have for the term of twelve years, in common with the subjects of Her Britannic Majesty, the right to take sea fish "of every kind, except shell-fish, on the sea-coasts and shores, and in the bays, harbors, and creeks, of the Provinces of Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, and the colony of Prince Edward's Island, and of the several islands {320} thereunto adjacent, without being restricted to any distance from the shore, with permission to land upon the said coasts and shores and islands, and also upon the Magdalen Islands, for the purpose of drying their nets and curing their fish." By article nineteenth the same right was accorded to British subjects, in common with the citizens of the United States, along "the eastern sea-coasts and shores of the United States north of the thirty-ninth parallel of north latitude, and on the shores of the several islands adjacent thereunto, and in the bays, harbors and creeks of the said sea-coasts and shores of the United States and of the said islands." Finally, by article twenty-first free trade between Canada and Prince Edward's Island and the United States in the produce of their respective sea-fisheries was established. [Sidenote: The Halifax commission and award.] The contention on the part of Great Britain in regard to this subject was that the rights and privileges accorded to the citizens of the United States by these articles were more valuable than those conceded to the subjects of Great Britain by the United States, and that a sum of money should be paid to Great Britain by the United States in offset thereof. The United States denied the British assumption, and the two high contracting parties agreed, in the twenty-third article of the Treaty, to leave this matter to the arbitration and award of three commissioners, one to be appointed by the President of the United States, one by Her Britannic Majesty, and a third by the President and the Queen conjointly, provided they could agree upon a person within three months from the date when the Treaty should take effect and, if not, then by the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador at the Court of St. James.