228 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NEWFOUNDLAND 



Newfound- 

 land retali- 

 ated by 

 enacting 

 anti-bait 

 laws, 1887 

 tt seq,,ivith 

 penalties, 



derived 

 from an 

 English 

 precedent 

 ofiSi 9 , 



and which came into force in 1888. This was the year in 

 which the French question was more menacing than it had 

 ever been, and the anti-bait laws were aimed equally at 

 France and at the United States. 



The Anti-bait Act, 1887, carried former Acts, which im- 

 posed an export duty on bait-fish, and which had been 

 extinguished by the Reciprocity Act of 1854, one step further. 

 It was modelled too on similar Canadian laws, 1 which prohi- 

 bited sales of bait by unlicensed persons, and which were 

 only suspended during the prevalence of reciprocity. In the 

 Act of 1887, as amended by Acts passed in 1888 and 1889, 

 not only 'catching and selling bait-fish for export', but 

 ' putting ' and ' conveying them on board of any ship for any 

 purpose whatever ', was included in the prohibition. As in 

 the Canadian Acts, the penalty consisted not only of a fine, 

 but also of confiscation of the offending ship with its boats 

 and tackle, the latter drastic penalty being derived from an 

 English Act of 1819, which provided for the execution of the 

 American Treaty of 1818. It is, however, arguable that both 

 the English Act and the Treaty of 1818 were dictated by 

 archaic ideas of international law which were prevalent at 

 that time. 



The argument, which is plausible, may be stated thus: 

 Before 1818 England claimed the Gulf of St. Lawrence as 

 a British Lake, although Cabot Strait is nearly sixty miles and 

 Belle Isle Strait is nearly ten miles across ; but the Treaty 

 waived this claim in the case of inhabitants (not ships) of the 

 United States, who fished between Ramea Islands, Cape Ray, 

 and Quirpon, or in or off Labrador east or north of Mount 

 Joli. The fishery was a sea-fishery ' in common with ' British 

 subjects, and included drying and curing rights on the unsettled 

 parts of Labrador, and of the said south coast of Nevvfound- 



1 Canada, 31 Viet. c. 61 ; 33 Viet. c. 15; 34 Viet. c. 23; Prince 

 Edward Island, 6 Viet. c. 14; and various laws of New Brunswick and 

 Nova Scotia. 



