BAIT-FISH— EXPANSION — AND CONFLICT 211 



was a living magnetic force. Accordingly in 1854 Governor 

 Ker Baillie Hamilton, backed by his Solicitor-General, intro- 

 duced a Bill which would have effectually prevented bait-sales 



to foreigners. Hardly had he done so when a magician '^^^'^^^ f/''^ 



, , J 1 r 1 .T^i allayed by 



appeared upon the scenes and muttered a formula. 1 here ffi^ ^^^1- 



was a sudden revulsion of sentiment. Things which had /T'''^.^'^ <^^^- 



fishtftg 



been blamed as secret vices were praised as public virtues, sanctioned 



and even the ineffective law of 1836 was repealed. The^^^^. 



1 TT • 1 o 1 . , .11. Treaties of 



magician was the United States, the conjurer who raised him Washing- 



was Canada, the formula was a Treaty, and the word in the ^^'' ^^5^, 

 Treaty which stilled the storm was the word cod. Negotia- 

 tions with the United States for the purpose of explaining 

 and expanding the Treaty of 18 18 had been suggested by 

 Canada in 1847, ^^<^ resulted in the Treaty of Washington, 

 which was concluded by the Earl of Elgin on behalf of British 

 North America in 1854.^ It was terminable after ten years, 

 and during its continuance Americans were admitted within 

 the three-mile limit of the British coasts of the Atlantic and 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence, for purposes of sea-fishing, and to 

 the same shores for the purposes of curing and drying fish 

 (but not so as to interfere with private property or British 

 occupants), and British North Americans were admitted to 

 analogous privileges on the seas and shores of New England.*^ 

 A postscript to the Treaty admitted fish and fish-oil free from 

 the country of one into the country of another of the con- 

 tracting parties. To the Newfoundlander fish meant cod, cod- 

 fishing necessitated bait-buying, and cod put bait-bills out of 

 the minds of Newfoundlanders for the twelve years during 

 which the Treaty lasted. In 1866 the United States dissolved 

 the Treaty, and immediately bait-fish began to loom once 

 more before men's minds and to portend a political storm ; 

 but the storm was postponed by the issue of licences to buy 

 or sell bait, and was allayed by the second Treaty of 



1 Accounts and Papers, 1854-5, vol. Iv, p. 367, No. 1861, 



2 N. oflat. 36°. 



P 2 



