BRITISH, COLONIAL, AND OTHEB CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 383 



mouldered into dust ; since the dispute began. * * * The terrible 

 Mortmain, the weight of the dead hand was always to hang over the 

 land. * * * Is that the kind of appeal " (to ancient Treaties) 

 " that can be made with success to Americans ? * * * Is it the 

 kind of appeal that can be successfully addressed to a generation 

 which has seen ? " &c., &c., &c. 



" To such a plea the Americans will make answer that in spite of 

 all musty parchments and obsolete formularies, the earth belongs to 

 the living and not to the dead, and that it is vain to plead the word- 

 ing of old compromises against the lights of humanity of to-day." 

 Bravo! Noble words; worthy of a great enlightened nation. We 

 accept every one of them. Of course the minor circumstances that 

 these high and noble sentiments were expressed, not against the New- 

 foundland fishermen, but the old and decrepit fishermen of the Vati- 

 can, does not affect the great national and patriotic principle above 

 enunciated. The trifling difference that the Treaty alluded to in thf 

 above extract was not that of 1818, but one a little older, namely, 1801. 

 The Concordat was a very solemn Treaty entered into between France 

 and the Pope. It had all the elements of a great International 

 Treaty; but why should such an antiquated document stand in the 

 way of the great march of civilization of the twentieth century? 

 Just so. Now to apply the principle to the Treaty of 1818, I main- 

 tain that it should be abolished, and with all respect, I submit that 

 this is the demand our delegates should make at the next Colonial 

 Conference. England should pay a reasonable compensation, as she 

 did in the case of France. The Americans will not be in any worse 

 position by allowing this degrading yoke to be lifted from our 

 shoulders. On the contrary they will be better off. In the first place 

 they will have the money payment to be made as compensation. 



Secondly. Our local Government will be more cordially disposed 

 towards them, and less inclined to enforce local laws in a vexatious 

 way against them ; and 



Thirdly. It is impossible to conceive any outcome of negotiations, 

 or future Treaty which will grant to the Americans any more favour- 

 able terms than we, the Government of Newfoundland, would be pre- 

 pared to grant them, if not coerced with this badge of slavery a 

 Treaty imposed upon us by England. 



The sentiment is growing fast throughout the Empire, that Britain 

 must no longer impose Treaties on her unwilling Colonies, and she 

 dare not renew the Treaty of 1818 without running the risk of the 

 disruption of the Empire. The sooner Americans recognise and take 

 heed of this great fact the better. 



Newfoundland is in the near future about to become a most im- 

 portant link in the great chain of commerce and travel which will 

 gird the globe. That portion of our shore now bound in the manacles 

 of this ejfete Treaty plays a prominent part in this great scheme of 

 civilization and progress. It must be freed. We must shake off the 

 shackles of foreign domination. It must be no longer the Ameri- 

 can Treaty Shore. We want no outside nation to crush the heel of 

 hard Treaty rights upon the fair face of the noble and most beauti- 

 ful province of our country. In a word, there must in future be no 

 place around our seagirt isle which we cannot, in all the fulness of 

 right and dominion, call the Newfoundland shore. 



I remain, etc., M. F. HOWLET. 



