PEEIOD FROM 1871 TO 1905. 653 



Newfoundland fishing population at Fortune Bay, in January of this 

 year, as the answer which Her Majesty's Government makes to the 

 representations laid before it on our part, verified by the sworn state- 

 ments of numerous and respectable witnesses. 



His lordship has not placed in our possession the proofs or depo- 

 sitions which form the basis of Captain Sulivan's conclusions of fact, 

 and I am unable, therefore, to say whether, upon their consideration, 

 the view which this government takes of these transactions, upon the 

 sworn statements of our own respectable citizens, would be at all 

 modified. In the absence of these -means of correcting any mistakes 

 or false impressions which our informants may have fallen irto in 

 their narrative of the facts, it is impossible to accept Captain !uli- 

 van's judgment upon undisclosed evidence as possessing judicial 

 weight. 



You will, therefore, lay before Her Majesty's Government the de- 

 sire which this government feels to be able to give due weight to this 

 opposing evidence, before insisting upon the very grave view of these 

 injuries which, at present, its unquestionable duty to the interests 

 which have suffered them, and its confidence in the competency and 

 sobriety of the proofs in our possession, compels this government to 

 take. Should Her Majesty's Government place a copy of the evi- 

 dence upon which Captain Sulivan bases his report in your hands, you 

 will lose no time in transmitting it for consideration. I regret that 

 any further delay should thus intervene to prevent ah immediate 

 consideration of the facts in the matter by the two governments in 

 the presence of the same evidence of those facts for their scrutiny and 

 judgment. 



But a careful attention to Lord Salisbury's note discovers what must 

 be regarded as an expression of his views, at least, of the authority of 

 provincial legislation and administrative jurisdiction over our fish- 

 ermen within the three-mile line, and of the restrictive limitations 

 upon their rights on these fishing-grounds under the Treaty of Wash- 

 ington. Upon any aspect of the evidence, on one side and the other, 

 as qualifying the violent acts from which our fishing-fleet has suf- 

 fered at the hands of the Newfoundland coast-fishermen, the views 

 thus intimated seem to this Government wholly inadmissible, and do 

 not permit the least delay on our part in frankly stating the grounds 

 of our exception to them. 



The report of Captain Sulivan presents, as a justificatory support 

 of the action of the Newfoundland shore-fishermen, in breaking up 

 the operations of our fishing-fleet inside the three-mile line, at the 

 times covered by these transactions, the violation of certain municipal 

 legislation of the Newfoundland Government which, it is alleged, our 

 fishermen were in the act of committing when the violent interrup- 

 tion of their industry occurred. I do not stop to point out the serious 

 distinction between the official and judicial execution of any such 

 laws and the orderly enforcement of their penalties after solemn trial 

 of the right, and the rage and predominant force of a volunteer multi- 

 tude driving off our peaceful occupants of these fishing grounds 

 pursuing their industry under a claim of right secured to them by 



