402 MISCELLANEOUS 



injustice" when disallowance is enforced. This may be passable 

 rhetoric, but the rights are conditional upon disallowance when local 

 laws conflict with Imperial treaties. Sir Robert Bond says it has 

 been exceedingly distasteful to himself and his colleagues to oppose 

 the action of his Majesty's Government and we can well believe it; 

 but it was with them a matter of public duty. They opposed from 

 " a firm belief in the truth of the maxim he serves the King best 

 who directs his endeavors to the preservation of the rights and the 

 privileges of the King's subjects." This is to beg the question. His 

 Majesty's subjects are not limited to Newfoundland. There are a 

 few millions in these islands who have rights; and not the least of 

 them is that they shall not be embroiled in war with a foreign State 

 because of breaches of treaty obligations by Sir Robert Bond's 

 Government. With every deference to the people of Newfoundland 

 we beg to remind them that the treaty of 1818 is between the United 

 States and Great Britain and that, as we should have to bear the 

 consequences of any failure to observe its stipulations, we have the 

 right to regulate their conduct. They must, not to put too fine a point 

 upon the matter, accept our interpretation of what they can or can- 

 not do under the treaty ; not their own. Sir Robert Bond sets up the 

 opposite contention. He gives a version of colonial rights which 

 would make them superior to that of the Crown. " I humbly and 

 respectfully hold," he says, referring to the Bait Act which was sus- 

 pended in opposition to the will of his Ministry, " that no power of 

 suspension, limitation or abrogation of this law, or of any law, or 

 this Colony which has received the Royal Assent is vested in his 

 Majesty's Ministers or even in the Crown itself." His argument is 

 that under the Bill of Rights, no law can be suspended by Royal 

 authority without the consent of Parliament; and he appears to be 

 thinking, not of the Imperial Parliament, but of the Colonial. It is 

 a constitutional point or academic rather than practical interest, for 

 it is quite certain that if the Legislature of Newfoundland became ob- 

 streperous and used the rights of self-government to the embarrass- 

 ment of the Empire, the island would be deprived of those rights. 

 Such a deprivation would not be without precedent in our Colonial 

 history; and it is quite an open question whether if Newfoundland, 

 under Sir Robert Bond cannot act in harmony with the Imperial 

 authorities, it would not be well for her to dispense with a Ministry. 

 A better way, however, than reversion to the Crown Colony system 

 would be for the island to enter the Dominion to which she belongs 

 geographically. 



This course does not commend itself to Sir Robert Bond. In 

 a passage in which he complains that Great Britain has done New- 

 foundland injustice because she is weak he asks why she should be 

 forced into a union which she considers would be incompatible? 

 Why should she become absorbed if she prefers to retain her auton- 

 omy ? Why should she be thwarted in working out her own destiny 

 " under the genius of the Constitution ? " The answer is that 

 nobody wishes to force her or to thwart her, and that the " genius " 

 of the British Constitution is that in foreign affairs colonies are 

 required to conform to treaty arrangements made by the parent State. 

 Unless that principle is observed the Empire cannot be kept together. 

 If Newfoundland, under the system of responsible government gives 

 trouble in the observance of it s the conclusion tn be drawn is that 



