[HOWLEY ] THE LABRADOR BOUNDARY QUESTION 299 
boundary line of Newfoundland territory, even if we were a Province 
of the Dominion, without consulting our Government and obtaining the 
consent of our Legislature. It may be argued that the delimitation does 
not pretend to make any change in our boundary line, but fully respects 
it. But we reply that it definitely places it somewhere eastward of the 
head of Hamilton Inlet thus pretending to fix the very point that is in 
dispute between us.* We do not at all admit the right of Quebec to 
make this line of demarcation, and we maintain that our western 
boundary is further to the westward than the head of Hamilton Inlet, 
and also that this new extension of the boundary of Quebec Province 
encroaches upon our Newfoundland territory. This I will attempt to 
prove in the Second Part of this article. I will begin by showing the 
meaning of the word Coast, the word which is constantly used in the 
Imperial Acts and Proclamations when speaking of these territories, and 
always includes some portion of the territory or land lying behind the 
coast, what the Germans call the hinterland. I may here by way of 
example mention the case of our long existing, though now happily 
settled dispute of the French Shore Question, on the western and north- 
eastern coasts of Newfoundland. In this case, although it was distinctly 
laid down in the Treaties that the “ absolute dominion of the whole soil 
and territory” belonged to Great Britain and the French had only 
certain privileges or user of the coast, for the purpose of curing and 
drying fish, and cutting timber for fuel and making and mending scaf- 
folding and boats, yet it was always admitted, that the French rights 
should carry with them a certain depth of the back land. This right was 
admitted by the British Government, during the Prime Ministership of 
Lord Palmerston, if I mistake not, to extend to at least 
One half mile from the strand 
or high water mark. The French claimed an indefinite distance further 
back. If then these mere fishing rights of the French, carrying with 
them no jurisdiction whatsoever, no dominion over the soil, no civil or 
political power, carried with them nevertheless the use of a portion of 
territory, how much more so in the present case, where it is a question 
of Britain ceding to Newfoundland, one of her own Colonies, the full 
rights of government, civil polity, jurisdiction, and dominion of a certain 
part of the coast. How much more, I repeat, must this concession 
include a large strip of the backland? It must be remembered that 


* In the large Map of Canada issued by the Department of Railways and 
Canals (1903) the Newfoundland Boundary is completely ignored; the boundary 
of Quebec being made to run through clear to the Atlantic. 
