36 
PRACTICAL ISSUES INVOLVED. 
It is impossible to over-state or over-estimate the importance 
or magnitude of the question, and of the practical issues involved 
in it. It goes to the very root of the title to the whole of the 
territory for half a mile from the shore inland extending over 
about 700 miles of coast line. Not a house can be built, not a 
road can be made, not the simplest act of occupation or ownership 
can be done upon or in relation to a single square foot of land 
over this vast area, but “subject ” to the doubt as to the French 
treaty rights applicable to the foot of land in question. The 
changes which have taken place as regards the French occupation 
of the coast, while they have not solved or diminished the doubts, 
have intensified the anomaly, and aggravated the mischiefs and 
annoyance to the colonists, until it has at last reached the utmost 
limits of endurance. The contention on the part of the colonist 
is that the French “rights” to the use or occupation of the 
land are limited to their bona fide and actual requirements— 
that in places where they are not fishing, where they have 
never fished or have ceased to fish, or never intend or are never 
likely to fish, there is, or should be, no limitation of the English- 
man’s absolute right of property. The Frenchman contends that | 
he has a right from one year to another to fish wherever he 
pleases; that the whole coast—both sea and land—is always open 
to him to select from; and that there is no limit as to his right 
to choose. He protests, and continues to protest, against all 
permanent occupation of any part of the coast by British sub- 
jects, for any purpose whatever, as a possible interruption to him 
in the exercise of his treaty rights. There is no legal tribunal for 
the determination of the question, and neither nation will accept 
the other’s interpretation of the treaties. The “ protection ” 
service, under the British and French naval officers, is the only 
tribunal which pretends to deal with the question, and their 
functions, as already shown, are practically confined to keeping 
the peace for the time being, and principally in relation to 
fishery disputes. The whole question as to British rights of 
ownership of the land is as much disputed as ever; the evil has 
been further aggravated by the changes of which we have already 
spoken in Imperial “policy,” under which the colonists have | 
recently been accorded the outward forms of government, law © 
and order, representation, and all the other “institutions” per- 
