BRITISH, COLONIAL AND OTHER CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 379 



the House would be found standing shoulder to shoulder with the 

 Premier and his colleagues. They had hoped that the Address would 

 have taken this form, but the Premier has willed it otherwise. Whilst 

 he regretted the necessity for the Modus Vivendi, he did not see what 

 other course was open to the Imperial Government but to maiptain 

 as far as possible the status quo ante for the fishery season which was 

 then about to commence. The wisdom of the Imperial Government's 

 action has been shown by the result. The fishery had been carried on 

 as profitably as usual, and our fishermen on the West Coast have been 

 enabled to earn a fair season's wages, which is all they expect from 

 the herring fishery under the most favourable circumstances. 



No invasion of the position guaranteed to us by the famous La- 

 bouchere despatch of 1857 has taken place. The two cases are not 

 parallel. In 1857 the Imperial Government had entered into and 

 practically concluded an arrangement with France without the knowl- 

 edge of Newfoundland, under which valuable and important portions 

 of Newfoundland territory were proposed to be ceded to France. No 

 wonder the men of that day rose in arms when the tardy news of this 

 sacrifice of their rights was brought to them, and if the Modus Vi- 

 vendi which they were then considering had any such operation, the 

 patriotic heart of every man worthy of the name in Newfoundland, 

 without regard to class, creed, or political distinction, would beat in 

 unison. There would be no need to let the question fizzle in the news- 

 papers for four months and then bring it on the floor of the House for 

 an expression of opinion by a partizan Assembly. The people would 

 have acted promptly and decisively, and long before this delegates of 

 the people would have been knocking at the doors of Downing Street 

 and demanding that square deal which the Eight Honourable the 

 Premier has talked about. This was not done, because the people are 

 not behind the action of the Government in the course taken by them. 

 They recognize that they are the principal sufferers from the unwise 

 policy of the Government and its unwise legislation of 1905 and 1906. 



His position with regard to this question was very clear and very 

 simple. He was at one with the Government in their desire to 

 uphold in all their integrity the constitutional rights of the people of 

 the Colony, but he was wholly at variance with them with regard to 

 their fishery policy on the West Coast. His conviction was that the 

 herring that come to Bay of Islands every season come there pri- 

 marily for the benefit of the people of Bay of Islands, and, in the 

 next place, for the benefit of our fishermen as may see fit to go there to 

 earn a dollar for themselves and their families. Anything that will 

 increase the value of the herring for these people, who risk theijr 

 health, and sometimes their lives, in catching them, anything that 

 will improve the facilities for marketing these herring at better 

 prices, he would support to the best of his ability. Feeling convinced 

 that the Government's policy, if persisted in, will spell ruin for the 

 people of the West Coast, he opposed it to the utmost of his power. 



To our hard-working fishermen of the West Coast the question is 

 of vital importance. It means their immediate source of livelihood. 

 It means the difference between hard times and comparative pros- 

 perity. It means the possibility that some of them may have to go 

 abroad for a living. He trusted, therefore, that wiser counsels may 

 prevail, that future negotiations may be approached by our Govern- 

 ment in a better spirit than is shown by their present attitude, and 



