ARGUMENT OF SAMUEL J. ELDER. 1497 



that my Government feels sure that, through his influence, there will 

 be general willingness to carry out the spirit of the understanding 

 and work on the lines of least resistance." 



That is only one of quite a number of references which have been 

 made to Captain Alexander's presence, representing the United 

 States on the fishing coast, and all of them, with the exception of 

 one from the Newfoundland Ministers, speak in terms of approval 

 of Captain Alexander's work in seeing to it that the Americans 

 obeyed the rules and conformed to the spirit of the conventions, and 

 in adjusting differences between them and Newfoundland fishermen. 

 Captain Anstruther takes several occasions to mention the same 

 thing. I shall, with your permission, give those references this after- 

 noon. What I want to say with reference to that is, that it seems 

 as if his conduct made a demonstration of the value of joint enforce- 

 ment, and that it shows how peacefully, with both sides officially 

 represented upon a coast which had been one of contention, all 

 matters had been, might be, and could be adjusted. I ought to say 

 in this connection that when, last June, Great Britain presented its 

 complaints of acts of the United States in contravention of Great 

 Britain's views of the meaning of statutes, &c., it cited Captain Alex- 

 ander's presence on the Treaty Coast and his policing the coast as 

 one of the subjects of objection. But that does not destroy the 

 long story of their approval of his conduct. And now I am approach- 

 ing the end of your patience and of this part of the presentation. 



On the 2nd November, 1908, an election occurred in Newfoundland 

 which resulted in a tie, as appears in the United States Counter-Case 

 Appendix, at p. 638. A new election was ordered, it being impos- 

 sible to form a Government, and on the 8th May, 1909, a second elec- 

 tion was held, the result of which appears upon the same page. It 

 resulted in the overwhelming defeat of Sir Robert Bond and in 

 placing the Government in the hands of Sir Edward Morris, whom 

 we have the honour to have with us here, the Assembly standing: 

 Bond, 10 ; Morris, 26. So that the power of the people of the colony 

 was exercised as their contentions and protests had indicated that at 



some time it certainly would be. On the 4th April, 1908, prior 

 905 thereto, as you know, a general treaty of arbitration between 



the United States and Great Britain was entered into. On 

 the 27th January, 1909, this present treaty of arbitration was entered 

 into. The situation in 1909, as outlined here I came pretty near 

 using the word " briefly," but I restrained myself was this, in the 

 rough: The United States had well-considered and well-ordered 

 treaty privileges in Newfoundland waters. Auxiliary to the cod 

 fishery and important to the United States was' the bait fishery, to 

 say nothing of the great value of the herring fishery. The banks 

 near by were valuable and the west coast of Newfoundland was valu- 

 able. The great fishery of the Labrador coast was, in part, directly 



