234 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NEWFOUNDLAND 



shore, and the Canadian ships were licensed to buy bait. The 



Americans were unlicensed, and when Newfoundlanders 



worked for them they offended against the laws of 1889 and 



1905. Their offence was especially rank as the American 



vessels brought purse-seines, practised Sunday fishing in 



disobedience to local law, and refused to pay light and port 



dues or to clear at the custom-house. 



and a new Fearful of a collision, the English and American Govern- 



American nients patched up a modus Vivendi^ which made light dues 



modtis zvas and custom-house clearances compulsory, permitted purse- 



enforccdhy seines, prohibited Sunday fishing, and suspended the pro- 



ihe Royal visions Summarized in the clauses marked ia) and ic) in the 

 Navy and .. .,Arx-i.i 



by Ameri' Act 01 1905, and those provisions in the Act or 1900 which 



can Fishery ^vere not in the Act of 1005. Shipments of Newfoundlanders 



sioners. outside the three-mile limit were not to be penalized. Captain 



R. H. Anstruther, of HJI.S. Brilliant, and Mr. Alexander, 



U.S. Fishery Commissioner in the U.S. Naval Tug Potomac, 



watched over the modus. Once more the men of war proved 



peacemakers, and Captain Anstruther and Mr. Alexander 



added an informal rider to the fiiodus that the Newfoundlanders 



were to abandon night-fishing and the Americans the use of 



purse-seines. The modus and its rider were observed, although 



their only legal sanction was Salus reipuhlicae suprema lex, 



and when the Government of Newfoundland prosecuted two 



Newfoundland fishermen named Crane and Dubois — who had 



shipped on an American vessel outside the three-mile limit — for 



* putting on board' the vessel 'bait-fishes for export', they won 



a cheap legal success. Crane and Dubois were prosecuted 



and fined under the anti-bait Act 1889, or, rather, under a 



recent re-enactment of that Act ^ ; but it was thought that 



they had acted in pursuance of the spirit, although they were 



not protected by the language of the modus, and their fines 



were paid by the English Government. 



Next year a new modus was entered into. It prohibited 



1 Consolidated Statutes (Series ii), ch. 129, Sect, i, sub-sect. 5. 



