DUMB LUCK

Trade officials from the United States and Canada are preparing to resume talks in two weeks on the long-standing softwood lumber dispute between the two countries. Industry groups on both sides of the multi-billion-dollar argument over subsidies and tariffs are urging their representatives to be tough; there is considerable skepticism that a months-old impasse can be broken, yet some optimism as well that the first simple step of meeting to talk could lead to a breakthrough.

In other words, there are going to be negotiations – plodding, aggravating negotiations. With good luck and good will, there may be a compromise, an agreement neither side will love but that both sides can accept. If not, there will be more negotiations, for this is how civilized societies settle their differences.

Then there’s the approach Canada’s Fisheries Department took to settling a long-standing dispute over which country owns a 68-square mile patch of ocean around Grand Manan. Maine and New Brunswick lobstermen have shared waters in this “gray area” peacefully for many years by staying out of each other’s way, working in alternating seasons. Negotiations toward a formal cooperative management agreement that would end the arguing over which group of fishermen were getting the better deal have been plodding and aggravating. Early this month, Canada Fisheries decided to help things along by granting 18 New Brunswick boats special permits to fish the waters at the same time as Maine’s.

This was an astonishingly reckless decision. It need hardly be stated that the vast majority of fishermen in both countries are rational human beings. Fisheries officials in particular should be keenly aware that both countries have had the tragic experience of one irrational hothead setting off a trap war, with considerable property damage and occasionally violence. It has been reported in the Canadian press that New Brunswick fishermen who objected to this decision were told by their federal officials that if they did not set traps in the gray area, fishermen from elsewhere would be brought in. To make matters potentially worse, Canada Fisheries officials have been trying to stir up public opinion by asserting that Canada has stringent, conservation-minded lobster regulations, in contrast to Maine’s lax and rapacious approach. This is utterly false – Maine regs are famously tough.

The first seven Canadian boats moved into the area Thursday. They took extreme care to set their traps in water not occupied by American traps; the Americans were quite accommodating in making room for them. May this peaceful coexistence continue; credit the good will of fishermen on both sides of the border. As for Canada Fisheries, credit it with nothing more than good – and dumb – luck.