BBITISH, COLONIAL, AND OTHEB CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 505 



endeavor to show in the course of his remarks. Some seventeen 

 years ago, in 1890, the Premier of this colony, then Colonial Secre- 

 tary, went to Washington with the consent of his colleagues of that 

 day and opened negotiations for a reciprocity treaty with the United 

 States on fishery matters. That treaty we now know as the Bond- 

 Blaine Convention. He came back with flying colors and pro- 

 claimed that this treaty was all ready to go into effect, but in a very 

 few weeks it was found that our sister colony of Canada had resented 

 this action and protested against a separate treaty by Newfoundland, 

 insisting upon being made a party to that treaty herself, and the 

 British Government, at Canada's instance, hung up that treaty, and 

 it has been hung up ever since. Our Government, inspired no doubt 

 by the present Premier, brought into this house a measure of retalia- 

 tion by which the Canadian fishermen were required to pay a license 

 fee to obtain privileges in our waters. They were practically for- 

 bidden to enter our waters, and every effort was made to exclude 

 them, though at the same time the Americans were extended the 

 hand of friendship and given every concession possible. Some of 

 the Canadians very properly challenged the validity of this bluff 

 law, and took the matter into our courts which decided that the 

 law was worthless and compelled our Government to pay these 

 people back their money, with heavy costs. The next stage was that 

 after a few years the Premier of to-day was found to be plucking 

 up courage enough to go back to Washington in 1902 and negotiate 

 what is now known as the Hay-Bond Treaty, but this was not rati- 

 fied by the American Senate, and when it was handed back to 

 Newfoundland it was so altered that its own framers would not 

 recognize it. 



The Premier was forced to come home again, now, and admit that 

 he had been left a second time, now by the fishermen of Gloucester, 

 as he had been the first time by the fishermen of Canada. Then the 

 Premier took it upon himself to punish the Americans as he had two 

 years before tried to punish the Canadians. Simply because none 

 of his pet schemes, (his Reciprocity Treaties) had been ratified he 

 was determined that the Yankee fishermen would have to go. But 

 he little thought the men he was undertaking to put out of business 

 were men who know their own rights and how to maintain them. 

 The position of affairs is simply this: For the past thirty years they 

 have fished in amity and good fellowship side by side with our own 

 people, spending their money liberally and abiding by our laws and 

 providing an enterprise for hundreds of our people. Thirty years 

 ago when they first appeared here in any number, their fleet was 

 manned by Yankees, to-day their vessels have Newfoundland crews, 

 men who could not make a living at home and were forced in order 

 to support their families to seek a livelihood in foreign lands. Yet 

 because the American fishermen would not consent fco the Hay-Bond 

 Treaty, Sir R. Bond passed the Foreign Fishing Vessels Act, though 

 they have never injured our markets, nor interfered with the price 

 of fish or unfairly competed with us in the principal industries by 

 which we subsist. The Yankees agreed to go, out in going they said: 

 We respect your laws and recognise your authority; we know what 

 powers you have and that we cannot disregard them, but you on 

 your part must remember that we have treaty rights in this colony, 

 that these give us a right to fish on your West Coast on the same 



