All this while the fishery question was assuming year by year a form increasingly irritating to the two countries.  The headland question was the principal difficulty, and the British government, in order to conciliate the United States at a time when the Alabama question was a subject of anxiety, induced the Canadian government to agree, very reluctantly it must be admitted, to shut out foreign fishing vessels only from bays less than six miles in width at their entrances.  In this, however, as in all other matters, the Canadian authorities acknowledged their duty to yield to the considerations of imperial interests, and acceded to the wishes of the imperial government in almost every respect, except actually surrendering their territorial rights in the fisheries.  They issued licenses to fish, at low rates, for several years, only to find eventually that American fishermen did not think it worth while to buy these permits when they could evade the regulations with little difficulty.  The correspondence went on for several years, and eventually led to the Washington conference or commission of 1871, which was primarily intended to settle the fishery question, but which actually gave the precedence to the Alabama difficulty—­then of most concern in the opinion of the London and Washington governments.  The representatives of the United States would not consider a proposition for another reciprocity treaty on the basis of that of 1854.  The questions arising out of the convention of 1818 were not settled by the commission, but were practically laid aside for ten years by an arrangement providing for the free admission of salt-water fish to the United States, on the condition of allowing the fishing vessels of that country free access to the Canadian fisheries.  The free navigation of the St. Lawrence was conceded to the United States in return for the free use of Lake Michigan and of certain rivers in Alaska.  The question of giving to the vessels of the Canadian provinces the privilege of trading on the coast of the United States—­a privilege persistently demanded for years by Nova Scotia—­was not considered; and while the canals of Canada were opened up to the United States on the most liberal terms, the Washington government contented itself with a barren promise in the treaty to use its influence with the authorities of the states to open up their artificial waterways to Canadians.  The Fenian claims were abruptly laid aside, although, if the principle of “due diligence,” which was laid down in the new rules for the settlement of the Alabama difficulty had been applied to this question, the government of the United States would have been mulcted in heavy damages.  In this case it would be difficult to find a more typical instance of responsibility assumed by a state through the permission of open and notorious acts, and by way of complicity after the acts; however, as in many other negotiations with the United States, Canada felt she must make sacrifices for the empire,