BAIT-FISH EXPANSION AND CONFLICT 227 



their seines. Shortly after the second Treaty of Washington 

 some Gloucester vessels came into Long Harbour, Fortune 

 Bay, and used seines, superior in size to those of the New- 

 foundlanders, in such a way as to bar the herrings in the 

 inlet, on a Sunday in January, 1878. There was a riot; an 

 American seine was torn, and the Americans lost, or said that 

 they lost, the season's fishing. Similar events occurred in (similarly 



Conception Bay and elsewhere while Americans were catch- "* Co ' T lcc f- 



tion Bay} 

 ing their summer bait between 1877 and 1880. Then 



England paid to the United States by way of moral and 

 intellectual damages 14,850, one-fourth of which was after- 

 wards repaid by Newfoundland to England, and no further 

 unpleasantness occurred. 



During the discussions which accompanied these events both sides 

 startling discrepancies were disclosed between the points of ^/"^d 

 view adopted by English and American statesmen, and even local law, 

 English and colonial statesmen did not quite see eye to eye. 

 Colonial as well as English statesmen pointed out local laws, 

 passed in 1862 and 1876, which forbad the use of seines 

 between October and April, and which absolutely forbad in- 

 barring and Sunday hauling ; but English naval officers had 

 again and again called attention to the ignorance displayed 

 by Newfoundlanders of the American Treaty rights and of 

 their own fishery laws, and complained that both were daily 

 violated by Newfoundlanders with impunity, and that the 

 police of the sea-fisheries was wholly inadequate. How, 

 then, could Great Britain insist on obedience by aliens to laws 

 which the colonists habitually disregarded, and which the 

 colony took no pains to enforce ? But this was an objection 

 which time and energy would inevitably remove. A far more 

 serious situation was created when the Americans, taking the Ameri- 

 a leaf out of the French book, contended that they were not JJJ^^f"" 

 bound by local laws, either anterior or posterior to the Treaty, above local 

 After the Treaty terminated the gulf widened and Newfound- Jaw " 

 land passed the anti-bait laws which have been referred to, 



Q 2 



