NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 243 



nearly half the island is through the French shore, 

 it is equally certain that the wealth in mines, 

 timber, and agricultural produce of many thou- 

 sands of square miles must remain undeveloped 

 until some satisfactory arrangement is arrived at. 

 Thanks to the tendency of treaty makers to scamp 

 their work, and to be content to accept vague 

 generalities and to leave inconvenient details to 

 be dealt with by their successors, a nice muddle 

 exists in Newfoundland. The Crown exercises 

 sovereign right, and the Colonial Parliament 

 extends its rule over a portion only of a British 

 colony. And now, to make confusion worse con- 

 founded, we have entered into more vague and 

 ill-defined engagements with the United States. 

 Nobody seems even to know whether American 

 fishermen can exercise their rights subject to or 

 independent of the local laws binding on the 

 natives of Newfoundland. Still less can anyone 

 pretend to say what rights, if any, the United 

 States acquired on the French shore. The Fishery 

 Convention between Great Britain and the United 

 States was of course subject to the provisions of 

 all existing treaties entered into by France and 

 England, and dealing with the fisheries of New- 

 foundland, but nobody knows what those pro- 



