INTERNATIONAL TKEATIES. 177 



-to the lobster tisliery and began to use active measures for tlie 

 removal of British lobster factories, claiming that they were an 

 interference with their treaty rights and that they required the 

 places occupied liy them for their own uses. This preposterous 

 claim, so entirely unwarranted by the letter or spirit of the 

 treaties, proved to be the "last straw" in the case of tlie patient, 

 long-suffering Newfoundlanders. Public feeling was aroused 

 and soon reached fever heat. Mass meetings were held in the 

 capital and elsewhere, and delegates were despatched in 1890 to 

 ■Canada and England to apj)eal to the people of both countries 

 for sympathy and assistance in their struggle to get rid of these 

 French claims. Tlie agitation was not confined to the lobster 

 ■ipiestion. Tlie Avhole bearing of these antiquated treaties, which 

 for a century and a-half had been an incubus on the colony, re- 

 tarding it? progress, was now discussed in the light of recent 

 events. Tlie grievances of years had now become intolerable ; 

 and it is not wonderful to find that a deeper conviction than ever 

 before took hold of the minds of the people that these French 

 rights in NeAvfoundland were incompatiljle with the prosperity 

 and progress of the colony and that they must be terminated, 

 not by a violation of the treaties, but by an equitable purchase 

 or compensation, or exchange of territory, as might be agreed on. 



COLONISTS APPEAL TO ENGLAND. 



To the Parliament and people of England the colonists ap- 

 pealed for justice. England had originally made these treaties 

 and she alone could solve the difficidties. This coast had really 

 become of little or no value to the French. Their fishery had 

 declined till now only seven or eight fishing vessels, manned by 

 three or four hundred iiicii, visited tlie coast annually. For the 

 sake of this handful of fishermen this half of the island, licli in 

 .a variety of resources — agricultural, luml)ering and mining- 

 must be locked up. While useless to the French, these resources 

 were invaluable to the people of the colony. This was such a 

 manifest grievance to the colonists, and such a preposterous ab- 

 surdity in an economical point of view, that the appeals of the 

 ilelegates both in Canada and Enylaud met with a warm svm- 



