266 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



dictates of Canadian policy. To have permitted Newfoundland to 

 surrender to the United States the privilege of purchasing bait, getting 

 supplies and transhipping cargo, would have been to render nugatory 

 the independent and manly attitude of a great prospective nation, 

 representing almost entirely Imperial interests in North America, 

 for the convenience of a small colony, which if sufifering in any degree 

 from Canadian policy, had the alternative of merging its interests in 

 the Dominion and sharing in its progress and national spirit. For 

 the Imperial Government to have sanctioned the Blaine-Bond Treaty, 

 in the face of Canadian protest, would have been an act of suicidal 

 madness, and the only wonder now, in reviewing the correspondence, 

 is that Imperial Ministers were so slow in recognizing the true aspects 

 of the question and so much inclined to favor the pretentions of 

 Newfoundland in this matter. The ratification of the Blaine-Bond 

 Treaty might, possibly, have sounded the death-knell of Imperialism 

 in B.N. America, and Canada would have been compelled to rely 

 upon herself, and other agencies than the Colonial Office, to uphold her 

 independence, maintain her own self-respect and command that of 

 her powerful neighbor. 



Happily, though Newfoundland still remains out of the fold, no 

 causes of unpleasantness have since arisen, and that harmony and 

 mutual regard which should characterize two communities, however 

 differing in size and importance, geographically contiguous and 

 owing allegiance to the same sovereign. 



