ARGUMENT OF SIR WILiJAM ROBSON. 1747 



them, you may cure them, and then on the place where you find your- 

 self you may husband your fish, that is, you may warehouse them, 

 you may make a home for yourself. The warehouse man is the man 

 who keeps his house together, and when you speak of husbanding a 

 thing, you are making a home or a place for it until you desire to 

 take it away and do something else with it. So that here are all 

 these rights carefully given to those who trade there. 



Now, then, at the end of that section comes this little reservation 

 which is what I was going to draw attention to : 



" and that no alien or stranger whatsoever (not residing within the 

 kingdom of England, dominion of Wales, or town of Berwick upon 

 Tweed) shall at any time hereafter take any bait, or use any sort of 

 trade or fishing whatsoever in Newfoundland, or in any of the said 

 islands or places abovementioned." 



Xow, that means surely that no alien is to have the privilege, and 

 then comes this curious exception: 



" No alien .... not residing within .... Great Britain." 

 1057 That is to say, if your alien resides in Great Britain, then 

 apparently he is allowed to have the privilege. That looks 

 as if it were intended here to safeguard the interests of those British 

 masters who had been at Bristol and elsewhere accustomed to take on 

 board their vessels seamen who, although not naturalised English- 

 men, had become habituated or accustomed to sail in British ships. 



Well, now, there is nothing there (and I have now read two statutes 

 on which Mr. Elder relied) to show any kind of desire to permit, or 

 encourage, or allow the introduction of foreigners to Newfoundland. 

 Mind, I am not saying for an instant that if any fishing-boat had 

 found it convenient to take foreigners on board, some proportion of 

 them, anyone would have troubled to stop them at Newfoundland. 

 Why should they ? They were not afraid of it at that time. This is 

 1699, and we had not then begun our great European wars which 

 carried us through the greater part of the eighteenth century; but, 

 even then, and certainly later, if we had found our nursery, so to 

 speak, the Newfoundland fishery, being occupied by foreigners so as 

 to have any kind of effect upon our interests or upon the facilities for 

 finding employment for Britons, who can doubt that we would have 

 forbidden it? We did not forbid it because it was not worth our 

 while, but we never allowed it, that is to say, we never allowed it 

 in the sense of saying this is a thing you may do. We gave no 

 liberty, we gave no right. It was not worth troubling about very 

 much one way or the other in 1699. But, in 1818 I do not know 

 whether that is the next step. There is a statute I see in 1775. We 

 are getting then into what I may call the disturbed period (p. 543). 

 It contains a bit of history which is rather useful. It is a statute 

 which is intended to give bounties. 



