BRITISH, COLONIAL, AND OTHEE CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 403 



she has not quite proved her fitness for that type of government. 

 Sir Robert Bond denies that she has shown any Tin-worthiness for 

 the privileges she enjoys. It is a delicate subject that had better 

 not be pursued too closely. We have heard of railway contracts and 

 financial difficulties in the not very remote past which suggest doubt 

 on the wisdom of having given the colony full self-government ; and 

 of these topics no local politician has greater knowledge than Sir 

 Robert Bond. Politics in Newfoundland have ever had a com- 

 mercial tinge; and we are by no means sure that beneath the furi- 

 ously patriotic protests against an Imperial invasion of local con- 

 stitutional rights there is not a desire to handle a little Imperial 

 money. Embedded in Sir Robert's speech we find a curious passage 

 to the effect that if the demands of the United States had to be 

 conceded by the British Government "justice required that the 

 injury and loss about to be inflicted upon the people of this colony 

 should have been provided for by a measure of compensation that 

 would equalise the tax imposed by the United States Government 

 upon Newfoundland fish entering American markets." Here we get 

 to the kernel of the whole matter. What the Bond Ministry want 

 is "a measure of compensation," a financial solatium for the people 

 of the island. "Had this course been pursued," adds Sir Robert, 

 "this colony would have been spared the painful humiliation to 

 which it has been subjected" he means would have pocketed the 

 humiliation with the cash "and his Majesty's Government much 

 adverse criticism, and no doubt embarrassment, for under such cir- 

 cumstances as these this Government" and he goes on to say how 

 very differently they would have acted. Clearly what the Imperial 

 Government now have to do is to make up their minds whether they 

 can put up with whatever embarrassment the Bond Ministry can 

 make for them, or whether they shall offer a grant from the 

 Exchequer. 



Extract from "London Morning Post? September 11, 1907. 



THE NEWFOUNDLAND FISHERIES SIR ROBERT BOND'S POLICY RECIPROC- 

 ITY WITH AMERICA PREMIER'S ACTION CRITICISED. 



Sir James Spearman Winter, an ex-Premier of Newfoundland, 

 who is at present in London, gave to a representative of the Morning 

 Post yesterday his views on the Newfoundland Fisheries question. 

 He has hitherto abstained from giving interviews to journalists, and 

 it was only, he said, because of his belief that the public ought to be 

 informed of the views which he and his friends hold that he made 

 an exception in this case. Sir James Winter, like Sir Robert Bond, is 

 a native of Britain's oldest Colony, having been born at Lamaline on 

 New^ Year's Day of 1845. He was a member of the House of Assembly 

 in his thirtieth year, was its Speaker for two years, and has held 

 many Government offices, having been Premier and Attorney-Gen- 

 eral from 1897 to 1900. He represented the Colony at the Fisheries 

 Convention of Washington and in London during the negotiations 

 on the French Treaties question in 1890 and 1898. Sir James took 

 a strong line against the policy of Sir Robert Bond; he said that 

 public opinion in Newfoundland was on the whole indifferent to the 

 92909 S. Doc. 870, 61-3, vol 6 34 



