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CHAPTER ITI. 
THE “LOBSTER” QUESTION. 
RECENT GROWTH AND INCREASING IMPORTANCE, 
The industry of preserving lobsters by canning is of recent — 
growth and increasing importance in Newfoundland. The first — 
exports of canned lobsters from the colony occurred about 1880; 
but in the succeeding year the value of the exports amounted — 
to $100,000, and in 1888 to $385,000, which amount was con- 
siderably exceeded in 1889, and it is probable that the value this — 
year will equal $500,000. It is apparent that, to a people the 
produce of whose labour is almost wholly exported, and the — 
value of whose total exports does not exceed $7,000,000, 
this half a million dollars is of vast importance, and anything — 
which threatens the continuous, unhampered, and profitable 
pursuit of the lobster industry is therefore a serious matter to the 
people of Newfoundland. The first factory erected upon the 
coasts upon which the French have treaty rights was established _ 
in 1882, and another was started in 1883. It was in connection 
with the latter—four years after its erection—that the first. 
difficulty with the French concerning the lobster industry arose, 
and then the only contention made by the French was to the 
effect that the prosecution of the lobster canning industry by 
British subjects was an interference with their treaty right to 
freedom from interruption while prosecuting their fishery, 
whereby they evidently meant the cod fishery then engaged in 
upon some parts of the coast by a few French vessels. It is 
worthy of note that so late as 1887, when the difficulty at Port 
Saunders arose, the French made no claim to any right, much 
less an exclusive right, to take lobsters, and none to erect 
factories for canning purposes, which pretensions they have since 
urged most vehemently. 
THE FIRST DIFFICULTIES. 
The occurrences at Port Saunders, involving as they do the 
worst features of the anomalous condition of affairs upon the — 
