BRITISH, COLONIAL, AND OTHEE CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 401 



Extract from the Birmingham (England) "Daily Post", March 9. 



1907. 



Sir Kobert Bond, the Prime Minister of Newfoundland, has sent 

 us a document containing a verbatim report of a speech delivered 

 in the House of Assembly protesting against the Fisheries arrange- 

 ment with the United States. It is a verbose and contentious pro- 

 duction which can hardly have failed to have had a mischievous 

 effect upon the minds of the colonists. We regret that he should 

 have found himself unable to accept the decision of the Imperial 

 Government without taking a course calculated to foment resent- 

 ment in the island; but we do not think that the circulation of his 

 protest in this country will result in the enlistment of English opin- 

 ion in his favor. The issue at bottom was whether the views of the 

 Newfoundland Government should prevail over those of the British 

 Foreign Office. All the details of the controversy can be epitomised 

 into the question whether certain local legislation avowedly directed 

 against the United States fishing industry was or was not consistent 

 with a reasonable interpretation of indubitable treaty rights held by 

 the United States. On a point such as this the English public will, 

 we think, prefer to abide by the judgment of Sir Edward Grey. 

 Local considerations have of necessity to be subordinated to Imperial 

 policy. Sir Robert Bond seems to us to fail to make out his case, 

 because he does not adequately appreciate the inability of one Gov- 

 ernment to vary a treaty without the consent of the other contracting 

 party. The United States Government complained in that per- 

 emptory fashion which the diplomatists of Washington are so slow 

 in learning to avoid of certain definite acts done under the authority 

 of the local administration, and they requested a faithful observance 

 of their contractual rights. Our Government had to make up their 

 minds as to whether the facts of the complaint were as stated, and, 

 if so, whether they constituted a breach of their treaty obligations. 

 Communications were interchanged with the Newfoundland author- 

 ities. There was no dispute on the facts. The issue was whether 

 the terms of the treaty justified the complaint and the demand for the 

 rectification of what was claimed to be a wrong. The Newfoundland 

 Government took a negative view. The reasons they advanced for 

 it were not deemed to be sufficient by the home authorities. They 

 therefore rejected that view, and came to a decision of their own 

 that the matter was one that must be the subject of a friendly arrange- 

 ment with Washington. This was formulated in a modus vivendi for 

 the present fishing season which conceded the requirements of the 

 United States. Such a concession would not have been made unless 

 the Foreign Office jurists thought that the treaty had been fairly 

 interpreted in the provisional settlement. The alternative was to 

 support Newfoundland in a doubtful cause and tacitly invite the 

 United States to fight for what she judged to be her rights. 



Because this alternative was not taken Sir Robert Bond declares 

 that " a painful humiliation " has been inflicted upon Newfoundland. 

 He objects that his Majesty's Government should have overridden 

 local sentiment and disallowed a local statute; and he claims that 

 the rights which entitled the colonists to make their own statutes 

 become the " most odious of all wrongs and the most vexatious of all 



