MISCELLANEOUS. 1065 



limited degree, owing to the recent re-establishment of the French 

 fisheries; and it is evident that nothing but the support and assist- 

 ance of our Government in some way or other can enable us to main- 

 tain the competition much longer with rivals who receive a bounty 

 equal to one third of the value of the article. I have now completed 

 the exposition of the causes of distress." 



Mr. Attwood said 



" Because it appears that the French are actually prosecuting their 

 fishery with all the enterprise and activity that might be expected 

 from such unlimited encouragement, notwithstanding the French 

 fishery was so very unfortunate last year, that they were only able 

 to supply little more than France, and their own colonies with fish. 

 I am told, on the authority of the French Consul, that they have 

 despatched more than four times the number of vessels on the fishery 

 this year than they sent out last year. These are the grounds of my 

 opinion, and without support from our Government or the interven- 

 tion of some great political event, that three-fourths of the present 

 Newfoundland trade will go from this country, into the hands of 

 France in the space of three years." 



The result of the representations and evidence adduced before the 

 Committee was the following Report. 



" It appears also to your Committee, that the trade itself has ex- 

 perienced a serious and alarming depression. The causes from which 

 this has arisen will require, in the opinion of your Committee, in the 

 ensuing Session of Parliament, a much more detailed and accurate 

 investigation; but enough has been shown by the testimony of re- 

 spectable witnesses, to prove, before this House separates, that the 

 fisheries will be most materially injured, the capital embarked in it 

 by degrees withdrawn, and the nursery for seamen, hitherto so justly 

 valued, almost entirely lost. 



Notwithstanding this strong representation on the part of a Com- 

 mittee of the British House of Commons, the subject has not since 

 been taken up by the Government. No relief or support has been 

 afforded from that period to the present; the British fisheries have 

 been left to languish and contend with the unequal competition ; and 

 as it was clearly proved, by the evidence of Mr. Garland and Mr. 

 Attwood, the great and most important portions of the most valuable 

 of the Newfoundland fisheries have fallen into the hands -of the 

 French and Americans, and without any rivalry on the part of the 

 British. The British fishery is now confined to an in-shore fishery 

 prosecuted in punts and small craft, leaving the deep sea fishery on 

 the Great Bank and other valuable Banks and fishing grounds alto- 

 gether in the hands of the French and Americans. 



Your Committee have no hesitation in stating that, if the framers 

 of the treaties of 1814 and 1818, had agreed to exclude the British 

 from these great fisheries, they could not more effectually have de- 

 prived them of all participation in them. 



Your Committee will now briefly remark upon the state of the 

 fisheries from the peace of 1814, down to the present period, having 

 to contend with the difficulties already noticed. Thrown altogether 

 upon their own resources, unaided by the Parent Government, it 

 must appear difficult to account for the preservation, by the British, 

 of even a remnant of the fisheries. According to all mercantile calcu- 

 lation they should have fallen into the hands of the French and 



