BAIT-FISH EXPANSION AND CONFLICT 229 



land, and a right to put to shore ' for the purpose of shelter 

 and of repairing damages therein, of purchasing wood and of 

 obtaining water, and for no other purpose whatever' l The 

 Act also allowed all foreigners to fish anywhere outside 

 the three-mile limit. The Act was an enabling Act, and threw 

 the Gulf open to the whole world, special privileges being 

 bestowed on the Americans. In order to enforce these new 

 rules of international law, the king was empowered to make 

 regulations by Order in Council, which should be as valid as 

 an Act of Parliament, overriding Colonial laws, but leaving 

 foreigners untouched, and the penalty on foreigners ' found 

 fishing or to have been fishing or preparing to fish ' in places 

 not authorized by the Act was confiscation of their ships, boats, 

 and tackle. But bait-buyers were traders, and neither Treaty 

 nor Act dealt with traders as opposed to fishermen ; although 

 by the comity of nations American and British traders have 

 visited one another's harbours freely ever since 1830. Conse- 

 quently, it was said, American fishing-vessels, which put into 

 shore in order to buy bait, violated the italics in the Treaty, 

 and were liable to the penalty devised by the English Act of 

 1819 and revived by the Canadian and Newfoundland Acts. 

 The authors of the Colonial Act of 1887 appealed triumphantly 

 to the English Act of 1819, but their appeal would only have 

 been relevant if the same principles of international comity 

 had been prevalent in 1818 and 1887. 



They also based their legislation upon common sense and andvarious 

 said : Why should we sell bait cheap to rivals who are out- 

 selling us by means of bounties and the like ? The maxim ency. 

 of our opponents is not ' live and let live ', but ' let others live 

 by killing us'. If France were to seize the Mediterranean, 

 and if the United States, which has already closed its own 

 markets to us, were to seize the Brazilian market with our 

 help, where should we sell cod? If the cod-market were de- 

 stroyed Newfoundland would be destroyed. If, too, herring 



1 The italics are mine. 



