VENEZUELA AND AFTER 335 



an attitude that raised anew all the old con 

 troversies. The colony sought to prescribe 

 regulations for fishing, even on the treaty coast, 

 that were held by the Americans to be wholly 

 destructive to their business. Diplomacy in 

 tervened and, by resort to a new modus vivendi, 

 preserved the peace until an agreement to arbi 

 trate was arrived at. The procedure of the 

 British Government in this matter aroused 

 sharp resentment in Newfoundland, and con 

 formity by the colonial authorities to the 

 prescriptions of the cabinet at London was 

 insured only by a threat of force. 



While this situation was giving cause for 

 vexation, Messrs. Root and Bryce, in the course 

 of their treaty-making progress, signed on April 

 8, 1908, an arbitration convention that suc 

 ceeded in winning the approval of the American 

 Senate. It was no such broad and comprehen 

 sive agreement as that framed by Olney and 

 Pauncefote in 1897. Yet it served its pur 

 pose in the trend of world movement; for it 

 took its form under the influence and pre 

 scription of The Hague Conference, and ex 

 pressed the concurrence of the English-speaking 

 peoples in the beneficent work of that assembly. 

 By the treaty a dispute concerning the inter- 



