BRITISH, COLONIAL, AND OTHER CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 255 



The French Government have acquired, and Her Majesty's Gov- 

 ernment have conceded, a contingent right to supply themselves with 

 this article, so indispensable for their purpose, if the supply by pur- 

 chase should fail. But you will perceive that it depends on the 

 British suppliers of bait, whether this article shall ever come into 

 force or not, and that it cannot do so without the sanction of the 

 British Naval Officer on the station, whose duty would of course be 

 to communicate with the Government of Newfoundland on such a 

 demand being made by France. 



Her Majesty's Government have also acquiesced in the solution 

 favorable to France, of the disputed question respecting the Island 

 of South Belle Isle and Groais. 



It will be remembered that although these Islands lie within the 

 waters generally considered as belonging to the French fishery, yet 

 doubts were entertained whether the shore rights of France extended 

 to them, and the Law Advisers of your Government were at one time 

 of opinion that the English settlement could not be lawfully pre- 

 vented on these Islands, although none, as I am informed, at present 

 exists. 



These special articles comprise (it is believed) all the advantages 

 now conceded to France, in respect of the coasts and waters of New- 

 foundland properly so called. But Her Majesty's Government are 

 willing to purchase the benefit above mentioned for Newfoundland 

 by a concession elsewhere of greater importance, and to which France 

 attached considerably greater value, namely: That of a concurrent 

 right of fishing along about 80 miles on the coast of Labrador (in 

 the Straits of Belle Isle) but without use of the shore; and similar 

 rights on the coast of North Belle Isle with use (but not exclusive) 

 of the shore. 



The remaining stipulations of the Treaty, may as I believe, be 

 classed not as concessions or alterations of existing rights, but as an 

 endeavor to put into as definite a shape as the subject admitted, the 

 right which usage, founded on the above mentioned Treaties and 

 Proclamations, as already sanctioned. It would have afforded 

 greater satisfaction to Her Majesty's Government, as well as no doubt 

 to the inhabitants of Newfoundland engaged in the fisheries, if the 

 settlement of these questions had been accompanied by an abandon- 

 ment on the part of France of her system of Fishery Bounties in that 

 quarter. But this is a point in which Great Britain cannot enforce 

 by negpciation its own views on a state in the position of France, 

 possessing already under former Treaties such extensive rights on 

 the coast of your Government. It would not have been politic for 

 this country to make any absolute and irrevocable concession in order 

 to obtain the abolition of a protective system which might be in- 

 directly re-established without its being possible to prove a breach 

 of engagement. 



It is most assuredly the belief of Her Majesty's Government that 

 the fundamental impolicy of regulations of this class is becoming 

 daily more and more apparent in France and elsewhere, and that in 

 the ordinary course of events the industry of Newfoundland, and of 

 Great Britain, will not long have to sustain the unequal competition, 

 although *less unequal in reality than appearances, which they must 

 at present encounter from that of France. 



