NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE 'SEVENTIES 245 



lation of British subjects in a colony enjoying free 

 Parliamentary Government, paying taxes, but 

 having no representation whatever. There are 

 many other inconveniences arising from the 

 peculiar circumstances connected with the French 

 shore. The Government is, practically speaking, 

 precluded from making grants of Crown lands 

 over about 20,000 square miles of country ; nobody 

 cares to purchase and clear land or prospect for 

 minerals ; millions of feet of lumber have been 

 cut from off Crown lands without the payment 

 of one farthing, and the rivers are persistently 

 barred and the salmon fisheries destroyed. There 

 is, in fact, a state of things existing in Newfound- 

 land which finds no parallel in any civiUsed country 

 in the world, and which is unknown in any other 

 colony of Great Britain. In the midst of a self- 

 governing community a population exists owning 

 no allegiance to anyone, liable to no laws, practi- 

 cally speaking subject to no Government of any 

 kind. It is an anomalous and not a very creditable 

 state of things. Whether it can be remedied or 

 not is altogether another matter, but if possible 

 something should be done for our own credit and 

 for the sake of our fellow-subjects in Newfoundland. 

 Newfoundland has special claims upon us, for 



