994 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 



your Minister's proposals, His Majesty's Government suggested 

 some alterations which were eventually embodied in the Act of 1906. 

 But His Majesty's Government were careful at the same time to 

 explain that their action in suggesting these alterations was not to 

 be understood as in any way prejudicing the consideration of the Act 

 when passed, or as in any way identifying His Majesty's Government 

 with the policy of your Ministers, which they did not approve and 

 which they did not believe to be in the interests even of the Colony 

 itself. 



6. The Act as passed provided that it should not be brought into 

 operation until approved and confirmed by His Majesty in Council. 

 In the circumstances which I have described it was at least uncertain 

 whether His Majesty's Government would be prepared to take upon 

 themselves the responsibility of bringing the Act into operation, 

 and when the reply of the United States' Government to the British 

 Memorandum was received and it became necessary, owing to the 

 great divergence of view between the two Governments which it 

 disclosed, to arrange a modus vivendi, it was clearly out of the question 

 to complicate the situation, which it was the object of the modus 

 vivendi to relieve, by imposing on United States' fishermen the addi- 

 tional restrictions contemplated by the Act. 



7. It would be a source of great regret to me if in this or any other 

 matter His Majesty's Government should fail either in respect for 

 the constitutional rights of the Colony or in courtesy towards your 

 Ministers. As to the right of His Majesty's Government to allow 

 the Act to remain in suspense there can, I submit, be no doubt, and 

 the decision to do so was communicated to you at the same time as 

 to the United States' Ambassador. 



8. I asked in my telegram of the 8th August whether your Ministers 

 had any suggestions to make as to the nature of the proposed modus 

 vivendi. By your telegram of the 19th August your Ministers 

 informed me that they could not consent to any relaxation of the laws 

 of the Colony in favour of United States' fishermen, and that they 

 strongly deprecated any provisional arrangement with the United 

 States' Government, and urged that the Act of 1906 should be brought 

 into force at once. In your telegram of the 22nd August your Min- 

 isters again urged that the Act of 1906 should be brought into force, 

 and again deprecated any provisional arrangement. The question 

 of the payment of Light dues, they added, might remain in abeyance, 

 but they could not acquiesce in any evasion of the customs and fishery 

 laws. His Majesty's Government were thus left to their own un- 

 aided devices to discover and arrange, in the very short time remain- 

 ing before the commencement of the fishery, a basis for a modus 

 vivendi with the United States' Government, but the proposals which 

 they made to the United States' Government on the 3rd instant 

 included no concessions which your Ministers were not prepared 

 to make, apart from the suspension of the Act of 1906, and that, as 

 I have already pointed out, was entirely within the discretion of His 

 Majesty's Government. It was not until some days after these pro- 

 posals had been submitted to the United States' Government that 

 your Ministers evinced any readiness to consider a modus vivendi. 

 They then informed me that provided the Act of 1906 was brought 

 into force, they were prepared to give way on practically all the 

 questions in dispute. This intimation unfortunately came too late, 



