1750 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



against aliens, saying we will not have them. Prior to that we do 

 not find any legislation in their favour. All we find is that our ship- 

 masters are allowed a certain latitude of employment, not necessarily 

 in Newfoundland, but in different parts of the world. 



In 1699 they are allowed that latitude of employment in reference 

 to Newfoundland, but in that statute, the only statute in which Mr. 

 Elder can get near his point, in that statute again they say there 

 shall not be foreigners, because they say you shall only have the 

 bounty if the ship is fitted out in an English port where you are not 

 likely to get foreigners. So that when one looks at the legislation 

 it is as clear as daylight that there is no encouragement or permis- 

 sion on the part of England at all, and I think I was justified in 

 what I was saying this morning. I said it without having these 

 statutes in mind at the moment. I think I was justified in what I 

 said I was speaking simply upon the general policy of England, 

 which is known to us all that it would be impossible to show that 

 foreigners were employed in any sense which indicated a right to 

 employ them, or which indicated that they were employed so genor 

 ally and universally as to give rise to the contention that the treaty 

 was made on the basis that the United States may go on employing 

 them. 



That is Mr. Elder's point, and he cannot establish that point at all. 

 Let us be careful again how we talk about employing non-inhabitants. 

 Nova Scotians were, of course, employed very largely. Other colo- 

 nists would be employed very largely, and have been since, but there 

 is no evidence of any employment of aliens generally. Why should 

 there be ? Again I ask the Tribunal to consider who were the persons 

 who were supposed to have employed them, these Gloucester fisher- 

 men. They wanted all the employment themselves. They were in 

 these little schooners, fifteen or twenty men together, and thoy 

 scarcely recruited the world for foreigners. We. in our English 

 boats, did come across foreigners whom we took regularly into our 

 service. We scoured the world, our ships were in the Scandinavian, 

 Norwegian, and the Baltic ports, and they very frequently took on a 

 seaman, kept him, or employed him, as men were employed in those 

 days, for long periods of time. Under the old system of bonds you 

 had seamen engaging for three or four years at a time. But 

 1059 the little schooners and fishing- vessels going out from Glouces- 

 ter and Massachusetts were not ships of that kind. They were 

 not likely to pick up foreigners in cruises around the world, and 

 therefore they probably engaged only their own people. 



When one carries the statutes, as I have done, down to 1824. and 

 when one gets at close quarters with Newfoundland legislation, one 

 has nothing that indicates that foreigners might be employed, or in 

 fact were employed. The statute of 1775 is one bit of evidence worth 



