MISCELLANEOUS. 1073 



mised. The exigencies of Imperial interests might have demanded 

 these concessions at the hands of Your Majesty s predecessors; but 

 we humbly and respectfully submit whether it is consistent with any 

 recognized principles of justice, that the Imperial advantages on 

 which these Treaties were grounded should be purchased at the sac- 

 rifice of those rights, the preservation of which can alone secure the 

 prosperity of this ancient and loyal colony. 



But even if the evil rested here if it were simply the right of 

 foreign powers to concurrent privileges of fishing on our coasts, and 

 prosecuting their avocations on similar terms, we should feel but 

 comparatively small cause of complaint, for fair competition would 

 leave us but little to apprehend for tne success of our trade and 

 fisheries. Accordingly, in the abstract, the concessions embraced in 

 the treaties referred to would have been lightly regarded by Your 

 Majesty's loyal subjects; but they have been made the foundation 

 of the system under which those foreign powers now prosecute their 

 fisheries, sustained by enormous bounties which have urged them 

 into a condition of activity and strength, furnishing us every day 

 with fresh proofs of the hopelessness of unaided competition, of 

 which the decreasing productiveness of our fisheries and the awful 

 impoverishment of the people are a truthful and lamentable devel- 

 opment. 



MAT IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY 



We look to the source of all this, and we find it has been for 

 matters of imperial policy that our interests have been thus totally 

 disregarded. 



The various results of these bounties have frequently been brought 

 by the Legislature and the people of this Colony under the notice of 

 the Imperial Government. The foreign fisheries so sustained are 

 annually becoming augmented, while ours are marked by correspond- 

 ing diminution and decay. The effect of these bounties has been to 

 give to the French and Americans the entire deep sea fishing, form- 

 erly the boasted nursery for British seamen, but now completely 

 transferred to our powerful and ambitious rivals for maritime 

 supremacy. The bounty on the French-caught fish is fully equal to 

 the price usually obtained for British cure, and met as we are in 

 almost all our Markets by the protected fish of our competitors, we 

 are frequently driven to consent to sales which leave much less than 

 the actual cost of production. 



A most fruitful source of the prosperity of the French fisheries is 

 to be found in the supplies of bait they receive from our shores for 

 the Bankers which fit out at St. Pierre and Miquelon. in direct con- 

 travention of the Imperial Act 26, G. 3., cap. 26. This traffic is car- 

 ried on to the serious injury of the British on that part of the coast 

 and to the detriment generally of our fisheries. This question is 

 ably treated of by Captain Loch of Your Majesty's ship Alarm, who 

 was employed in the protection of our fisheries in the past year, and 

 whose valuable report forms an appendix to this Address. 



These evils have been progressing for many years until they have 

 reached a crisis which places our existence as a colony in utter peril. 

 The great fire in 1846 which swept away three quarters of a million 

 of the capital of the country assisted materially in hastening this 

 conjuncture, and precipitated the result which the operation of the 



92909 8. Doc. 870, 61 -3, vol 3 29 



