212 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NEWFOUNDLAND 



Washington, in 1871, which resembled the Treaty of 1854, 

 except that it curtailed the right of fishing on the shores of 

 New England. 1 Its lists of free imports included sea-fish and 

 fish-oil but excluded other articles, and a Commission was 

 authorized to assess the difference in value between the 

 privileges accorded to the United States, and those accorded 

 (the Hali- to tne British colonies by the Treaty. This Commission, 

 fax Com- w hich is known as the Halifax Commission, 2 assessed the 

 difference at $5,500,000, (1,045,000), which was duly paid 



arising out by the United States to England, and by England to Canada 

 second anc ^ Newfoundland ; and the United States terminated the 

 Treaty'], second Treaty in January, 1886, in the same way as it had 

 terminated the first Treaty. Long before its termination, 

 indeed before the Halifax Commission began to sit, the 

 character of the herring fishery had been changing, the political 

 horizon was darkening, and this fish of evil omen was baulking 

 the efforts after peace inspired by the cod. Before discussing 

 these changes we must follow the further flow of people along 

 the southern shore from east to west, and along the western 

 shore from south to north, between 1818 and 1857. 



This west- These westward movements proceeded in silence without 

 ward nti- r . . ... . r . . , r , r^, 



"ration friction, like the movements of migrant birds or fish. 1 he 



rush towards the new market from the east pushed those 



wno were already there still further west, or else the newcomers 

 Kay, near passed through the full places into the empty places which 

 fishin"con- were beyond. No one went inland ; and the human stream 

 tinned percolated every chink and cranny of the coast. The Bay 

 'winter, D'Espoir, which was the extreme western limit of the Electoral 

 Districts, 3 that is to say, of civilization between 1832 and 

 1854, was reached and passed. In 1857 a missioner described 

 the coast between Fortune Bay and Cape La Hune (forty 

 miles west of Bay D'Espoir) as a 'coast of about 150 miles 



1 N. of lat. 39 only. 



2 Accounts and Papers, 1878, vol. Ixxx (c. 2056), contains the 

 Halifax Commission's Proceedings. 



3 Bonne Bay (D'Espoir Bay). 



