BRITISH, COLONIAL, AND OTHEB CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 431 



precedent. It might be good policy for the Canadians, but our 

 circumstances were different, for the Americans had rights in our 

 island that would destroy the effect of the bill, while in Canada 

 they have no rights; and what may be naturally expected to happen 

 is the Americans and French will come together, make full arrange- 

 ments satisfactory to both, establish warehouses and cold storage at 

 St. Pierre, obtain their bait and supplies by employing Newfound- 

 land fishermen, and the policy of this bill will be the building up of 

 St. Pierre and making it more American than before, and when 

 St. Pierre becomes so fully Americanized her people would clamor for 

 admittance to the American republic, and once let America take over 

 St. Pierre and it would be a sore in the side of Newfoundland for 

 ever and ever. He could not understand the force of the two al- 

 ternative policies put forward by the Premier. The first pursued 

 for years by the Premier and advocated by him that we had certain 

 rights that the Americans needed to carry on their fishery, and we 

 were willing to extend these rights as a matter of courtesy while we 

 obtained free entry to their markets that would compensate us for 

 the privileges granted. On the other hand, there was the policy of 

 preventing the Americans getting bait, consequently they caught no 

 fish, and their markets would be open to us; that if they put up the 

 duty on codfish, the consumer would have to pay and we would not 

 be affected or injured as they would have to purchase from us. Now, 

 had the Premier come down and said that granting the Americans 

 rights to catch herring and bait on the treaty coast, but that he 

 now thought the time had come when Newfoundland must say we 

 are going to keep our bait because we need it and will cut down the 

 catch, and any excess you require must be bought from us. While 

 this would be accompanied by great dangers and losses, it would yet 

 be of good. But that is not the policy of this bill, but is the bad 

 results of a bad policy with no advantages. It loses to us the winter 

 herring fishery, and we get nothing back, and we enter upon a 

 policy of retaliation that will only recoil on our own heads. A man 

 that embarks a dollar on the strength of this bill may find in six 

 months time it is back again to where it was originally, for the bill 

 lacks the elements of permanency. The promise is held out to the 

 Americans that if they change their minds and give us the Hay-Bond 

 treaty we will change ours and give them bait. We give the Ameri- 

 cans their choice; let them go on as long as they like but we are 

 always ready to take them by the hand if they do as we want them to. 

 He, Mr. M., likened the Premier to Bunyan's " Mr. Facing Both 

 Ways," for the right hon. gentleman says in one breath, our bait 

 was getting short and there was not enough for our own people, 

 and that was the reason for this bill. In the same breath he says 

 that it is only a temporary measure, and yet again he later says 

 we will give back to the Americans what we now attempt to take 

 away if they pass the Hay-Bond treaty. He, Premier, is facing 

 three ways, not two. If our bait is scarce, where was the reason 

 of giving it to Americans? If we need it don't give it to anyone. 

 If we were short of bait, and could get no supply for ourselves, then 

 we would have no fish and if we had no fish what was the good of the 

 market. We wanted a market and yet we wanted the bait, but we 

 would buy the market by giving away part of the bait which we 

 ourselves must have to get the fish. The Premier had said that the 



