1984 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



her boots or oilers to the fisherman for every quintal of fish he 

 brought in as they pleased; but now, with the American competition. 

 the fisherman gets his opportunity of making his price. If he can 

 get a better price from the Americans he sells to them instead of 

 selling to the Newfoundland firms; and we find in Captain 

 1201 Anstruther's report a communication stating that some sell 

 to the Newfoundland traders and some to the Americans, not 

 to accommodate the Americans, but because they get a better price. 

 It is for the interest of the trader to prevent competition, it is for the 

 interest of the fishermen to have competition; but the Government 

 of Newfoundland, answering to the impulse of the trader, shows its 

 purpose not of fairly regulating the fisheries, but of preventing the 

 Americans from having bait for the bank fishery in order to compel 

 a commercial concession, and also shows that for that purpose it is 

 willing to ride down and over the interests of the fisher- folk for 

 whom our sympathies are invoked here. 



Not only that, but they are willing to float the power of England. 

 In a score of communications which have been read to you here and in 

 which Sir William MacGregor addressed the Colonial Office, he 

 advisedly used the expression : " My responsible advisers " think so 

 and so, that wise and capable man excluding himself from participa- 

 tion. In the score of communications that appear in this record 

 the colony of Newfoundland treats the Government of Great Britain 

 with scant courtesy, with persistent condemnation and in a contuma- 

 cious spirit. They are willing to violate the traditional policy of the 

 British Empire, so designated here, which never permitted the with- 

 drawal from France of the ordinary trading privileges as to the 

 purchase of bait. They are willing to do that for this sole purpose, 

 that involves necessarily the prevention of our fishing rights under 

 the treaty of 1818 as well as the prevention of our purchase under 

 the ordinary comity of nations. 



And Sir James Winter does not hesitate to say, after his review 

 of the whole situation, that the American treaty right is worthless. 

 After discussing this Question No. 6 the President says that it was 

 worthless as regards herring, and Sir James Winter says: Yes, it is 

 to a certain extent worthless as regards herring, and practically also 

 worthless as regards cod-fish on that part of the coast. 



Sir Robert Bond of course boldly avows the same position in 1905 

 in the extract relating to Newfoundland being the mistress of the 

 northern seas. She is mistress, his proposition is; and if the British 

 theory of this grant is right, so she is. If we are prevented from 

 buying and we are prevented from taking, we hold this great in- 

 dustry upon the banks at their will and in their power, and I suppose 

 we must abandon it. or we must pay over again for the opportunity 

 of getting bait to prosecute the industry. 



