234 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NEWFOUNDLAND 



shore, and the Canadian ships were licensed to buy bait. The 

 Americans were unlicensed, and when Newfoundlanders 

 worked for them they offended against the laws of 1889 and 

 1905. Their offence was especially rank as the American 

 vessels brought purse-seines, practised Sunday fishing in 

 disobedience to local law, and refused to pay light and port 

 dues or to clear at the custom-house. 



and a nciv Fearful of a collision, the English and American Govern- 

 ' American nients patched up a modus vivendi, which made light dues 



modus ivas an( j custom-house clearances compulsory, permitted purse- 



made, and .... 



enforcedly semes, prohibited Sunday fishing, and suspended the pro- 



the Royal visions summarized in the clauses marked (a] and (c] in the 

 Nary ana . x ' 



bv Ainci-i- Act of 1905, and those provisions in the Act of 1906 which 

 can fishery were nol ; n t j, e Act o f ig O ~. Shipments of Newfoundlanders 



Lommis- . 



sioncrs. outside the three-mile limit were not to be penalized. Captain 

 R. H. Anstruther, of H.M.S. Brilliant, and Mr. Alexander, 

 U.S. Fishery Commissioner in the U.S. Naval Tug Potomac, 

 watched over the modus. Once more the men of war proved 

 peacemakers, and Captain Anstruther and Mr. Alexander 

 added an informal rider to the modus that the Newfoundlanders 

 were to abandon night-fishing and the Americans the use of 

 purse-seines. The modus and its rider were observed, although 

 their only legal sanction was Sahts reipullicae suprema lex, 

 and when the Government of Newfoundland prosecuted two 

 Newfoundland fishermen named Crane and Dubois who had 

 shipped on an American vessel outside the three-mile limit for 

 ' putting on board' the vessel 'bait-fishes for export', they won 

 a cheap legal success. Crane and Dubois were prosecuted 

 and fined under the anti-bait Act 1889, or, rather, under a 

 recent re-enactment of that Act * ; but it was thought that 

 they had acted in pursuance of the spirit, although they were 

 not protected by the language of the modus, and their fines 

 were paid by the English Government. 



Next year a new modus was entered into. It prohibited 

 1 Consolidated Statutes (Series ii), ch. 129, Sect. i. sub-sect. 5. 



