BRITISH, COLONIAL AND OTHER CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 313 



one of the colonists of Newfoundland would be in a better position 

 than they were now even under the most favourable interpretation 

 of the Treaties and the Declaration of His Majesty King George III, 

 I then urged the following considerations with regard to the views 

 expressed on the subject of the supply of bait: 



That Her Majesty's Government not only on various former occa- 

 sions, but quite recently, had expressed its inability to sanction any 

 measure prohibiting the sale of bait to the French, and there was not 

 the least probability of this determination being in any way modified. 



That apart from the unfriendliness of any other course with re- 

 gard to a nation with which we were on terms of amity, this policy 

 was clearly the wisest, even in the interests of Newfoundland itself. 



Some thousands of the people of the Colony were almost entirely de- 

 pendent for subsistence on the supply of bait to the French, so that 

 the prohibition proposed would inflict upon them a ruinous injury, 

 apart from the serious loss to the Colony of the 40,OOOZ. to 50,000?. 

 which is in this way annually added to the resources of the commu- 

 nity. But great as this evil would be, it would be a comparatively 

 trifling one compared with other results likely to follow an act of 

 such unfriendly nature. It could not for a moment be supposed that 

 the French Government would allow an industry to be destroyed 

 which they had so frequently shown themselves to regard as of vital 

 importance to the maintenance of their navy. It was admitted that 

 even if the proposed prohibition was permitted, and was capable of 

 being practically enforced, the French fishermen would be able to 

 obtain all the bait they required from Treaty waters from the 20th 

 April, and it was obvious that any disadvantage under which they 

 would labour owing to this delay of about three weeks could be com- 

 pensated by an addition to the bounty. 



If this addition were to be only sufficient to place the fishermen in 

 the same position as they were before the prohibition, the object of 

 the latter would be entirely defeated, not to mention the harm done 

 in embittering the relations of two peoples whose friendship was even 

 more desirable here than elsewhere owing to their interests being 

 brought so much in contact. 



There was, however, a very great danger, indeed there was a very 

 high probability, that the immediate result of such an ill-advised 

 measure would be worse than this. Impelled by a desire not only of 

 advancing the interests of their navy, and of their own people, but 

 of bringing retribution upon a foreign Colony which had endeavoured 

 to injure them, the French Government would in all probability make 

 a larger addition to the bounties than that indicated, and in that case 

 the industry of the British fishermen would, it was scarcely necessary 

 to say, be destroyed altogether. For these reasons it was easy to see 

 that the determination of Her Majesty's Government to permit no 

 bait prohibition measure was not a merely arbitrary one, and dictated 

 solely in Imperial interests, as was sometimes supposed, but was really 

 and truly for the best interests of the Colony ; and whether this was 

 so or not, its very existence rendered futile the objection to the Bait 

 Clause, while insistance upon this objection placed in serious peril 

 the conclusion of an Arrangement which in all other respects was 

 without any question very greatly to the advantage of the Colony. 



For whatever might be the proper interpretation of the Treaties, 

 the evils which had resulted from the standing doubts on the point 



