ARGUMENT OF STB. WILLIAM BOBSON. 1755 



take that point of view. I say that you have got, by the expansion 

 of this Republic, 80.000.000 of people enjoying that right. No- 

 body could foresee that. Nobody would have believed it, but we have 

 to take the consequences of it. We have to take the consequences of 

 having made a grant to 3,000,000 which is now enjoyed by 80,000,000. 

 A food demand which might be easily met by a single class in 1818 

 now calls for enormous supplies. The United States has a daily and 

 continually increasing demand for fish which must be supplied. Just 

 think of laying a burden like that upon Newfoundland. Looking 

 at the case only on the merits, and, considering the circumstances 

 and conditions, can you fairly say that such a construction ought to 

 be given to this treaty as not only these 80,000,000 should enjoy it, 

 but that corporations or men who put their capital into this industry 

 may call in men from Asia if they like to carry it on? We are 

 entitled to look at the future. At this present time the price of 

 labour in the United States makes it difficult for them to carry on this 

 fishery. I do not know about figures, but I should not be surprised 

 to learn that, in so far as the American fisherman is concerned, the 

 number employed is a diminishing number, and that they no longer 

 need this right for the purpose for which Mr. Adams asked it. 

 They have those great domestic industries on such a scale, and paying 

 so high a wage, that it is not easy for them to get men to undertake 

 the laborious and, I am afraid, the less-paid task of fishing, but 

 their population is still growing by leaps and bounds, and their food 

 supply is a matter of absolute importance. 



If they allow free and open trade to Newfoundland it does not mat- 

 ter who gets the food, but supposing they do not adopt that policy of 

 free and open trade, a policy which, no doubt, would make New- 

 foundland rejoice in the prosperity of the United States, supposing 

 they say, as according to the present indications they will say : We are 

 going to exercise this right and we are going to keep it to ourselves, 

 the enormous increase in the burden which has been put upon New- 

 foundland we will stand by, we are going to keep this right for 

 80.000,000 and we will not even give Newfoundland a market for a 

 herring in the United States ; we will keep it to ourselves, you shall 

 be shut out of our market, but you cannot shut us out of your terri- 

 tory and we may employ whom we please ; all we have to do is to get 

 some wealthy capitalist, some man who cares to run fishing upon a 



great scale, like an oil trust, or Heaven knows what else, and 

 1062 he may employ any number of Japanese, or any number of 



Asiatics, what then would be the position of Newfoundland, 

 unable to enjoy the greatness of a market which is at its door and 

 unable to prevent this enormous influx, it may be, of Asiatics, whom 

 it does not desire but whom it will be unable to keep out? 



