NOl;Tli ATLANTIC COAST FI-- II KK1 KS ABBITRATIOM . 



to keep Newfoundland unpopulated and inflicted penalties upon 

 people endeavouring to live in Newfoundland and fish a roast when 

 they wanted raw and a raw when they wanted roast policy. Here 

 is the way in which the fishermen looked at it, United States Counter- 

 Case Appendix, p. 380. The fishermen of the Ferryland district 

 observe, not on the treaty coast send a petition to the legislature in 

 which they say : 



" That your petitioners are engaged in the cod-fishery on the 

 southern shore, and until tw T o years ago added to their earnings from 

 that avocation by the sale of bait to American vessels. 



" That this bait business was one which enabled your petitioners 

 to earn considerable money, and that the visits of these American 

 vessels resulted in the circulation of considerably larger amounts to 

 the sale of ice, stores, fishing outfits, shipping men, and proving a 

 means of circulating at least $40.000 per year to the people of thi- 

 district." 



* 



They strenuously object to this new policy of the Government of 

 Newfoundland in so far as that branch of it goes which is concerned 

 with preventing the sale of bait. They say : 



" That this traffic has become so profitable to the people of thf-f 

 Nova Scotia ports that they are advocating the abolishing of the 

 license fees altogether, and allowing free entry to the American 

 fishermen, without any restrictions, for the sake of the trade they 



bring. . . . 



1200 "And that your petitioners, therefore, humbly pray that 

 this Legislature in its wisdom will terminate the present policy 

 of hostility towards the American fishermen, and return to thai 

 under which the people of this district and other districts of tin- 

 Colony were able to earn food for their families by carrying on 

 legitimate traffic with the Americans, instead of being, as they are 

 now, obliged to emigrate to foreign lands to obtain a livelihood 

 denied them at home. 



The Bay of Islands fishermen held a monster mass meeting, in 

 which they passed a resolution protesting against the new policy. 

 They say, at p. 386 of the United States Counter-Case Appendix : 



"We beg to state most emphatically that the people of this coast 

 are unanimous in condemning this policy as one whirh is injurious 

 to the best interests of the Colony as a whole, and ruinous to the live- 

 lihood of the people of this Western Coast." 



Governor MacGregor. forwarding that in a letter of the 4th of 

 April, 1907, to the Colonial Office, says that the newspaper which 

 reports it represents that this resolution was adopted at a meeting 

 which was well attended and that " the resolution was adopted with 

 practical unanimity, and expresses the deliberate opinion of the 

 community." There was a protest from Bonne Bay, which appears 

 at p. 389. The fishermen, in what they say, point to the real origin 

 of this policy : 



