424 MISCELLANEOUS 



admit the correctness of the principle, approved by the United States 

 Administration, that the extension 01 such privileges entitle this 

 colony to that measure of reciprocity provided for in the treaty now 

 before the Senate. It would seem that the gratuitous extension of 

 those privileges by the government of this colony over so long a 

 period has given the impression to the people of the fishing settle- 

 ment of Gloucester that the few thousand dollars left by them in this 

 colony in the purchase of bait fishes is so important a consideration 

 to the people of this colony that no action is likely to be taken to 

 prevent a discontinuance 01 those privileges. I have already shown 

 by extracts from papers presented to the Senate of the United States 

 from Gloucester, and from the report of the utterances of some of 

 her representative men, the correctness of our conclusion. 



In conclusion I desire to make clear to this House, and to all those 

 outside of the House who are interested in the question under con- 

 sideration, what is the attitude of the government. 



This must not be regarded in the nature of a threat, as " a declara- 

 tion of war," as the leader of the opposition has asserted, or as an 

 attempt to strike a blow at the fishery interests of the New England 

 States; but it is, I submit, a wise measure, conceived in the interests 

 of the people of this colony, and calculated only to command the 

 respect of our friends in the great American Republic. 



For fifteen years, by a free and generous policy toward our fisher 

 friends of the New England States, we have endeavored to show them 

 that in our desire to secure a measure of reciprocal trade with their 

 country we intend them no injury whatever; on the contrary, we de- 

 sire to compete with them on equal terms for the enormous market 

 that the 85 millions of people in the United States offers for fishery 

 products. In 1890 we said to the people of the United States, Remove 

 tlie tariff bar that shuts our fishery products out of your markets, and 

 we will grant you all the supplies that you require at our hands to 

 make your fishing a success. The offer still holds good. For the rea- 

 son that I have explained, the past fifteen years the fishermen of the 

 United States have received those supplies without the tariff barrier 

 to the admission of our fishery products into the United States being 

 removed by act of Congress, but we find the very men to whom we 

 have extended such generous treatment are precisely those who have 

 worked most strenuously to injure us in our trade relations with their 

 country. We now propose to convince those men that the hands that 

 have bestowed the privileges they^ have enjoyed have the power to 

 withdraw those privileges. In doing this we simply rise to the full 

 dignity of matter-of-fact statesmen. With the Administration of 

 the United States we have no shadow of a cause for complaint. They 

 have treated us with the greatest courtesy whenever we have ap- 

 proached them, and have manifested both a friendly and just attitude 

 toward this colony. It is not the fault of the Administration at 

 Washington that we are where we are to-day in this matter ; the fault 

 lies solely at the door of those who, for petty personal interests, have 

 misrepresented facts, and, by so doing, have deceived those who rep- 

 resent them in the Senate of their country. It would ill become us. a 

 little colony of a quarter of a million people, to throw down the gage 

 of battle to a great nation of eighty-odd millions. We should merely 

 make ourselves the laughing stock of the world. But, by standing 

 upon our rights and exercising such powers as we possess in defense 



