1074 MISCELLANEOUS. 



treaties in question was producing by slower but not less certain 

 means. 



Since the period of that disastrous event, the sum of Thirty-five 

 Thousand Pounds have been disbursed from the public Treasury 

 of the colony to preserve the fishing population from actual starva- 

 tion. 



Nor do we see a prospect of relief from a continued pressure while 

 the evils of foreign competition in our fisheries remain uncorrected. 

 So strong is the feeling widely spreading on this subject that num- 

 bers of our most hardy fishermen are quitting the colony to seek 

 from our rivals that remunerative employment which they despair 

 of being able to obtain at home, and it creates not unnaturally a 

 feeling of deep discontent that in the prosecution of similar pursuits 

 in which they are often together engaged, the subjects of other 

 powers find an adequate recompense for their toil, while British 

 fishermen in Newfoundland are unable to obtain the common neces- 

 saries of life, and have latterly been dependent in a great degree on 

 the bounty of the local government for support. 



MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY 



The result of such a condition of things must be inevitably ruin- 

 ous. The continued emigration of our fishermen ran scarcely be 

 prevented, and a valuable portion of our population will be attracted 

 to swell the tide of competition which assails us. They will naturally 

 flee from a colony whose resources are withered by neglect, to obtain 

 that reward for their labour which is offered to them by the rivals 

 of British naval supremacy. 



Neglect has long been our portion. While other Colonies have been 

 from time to time recipients of Imperial Bounty, no such aid has 

 ever been extended to Newfoundland, which, considered by reference 

 to its maritime and commercial importance, is the most valuable of 

 the transatlantic British possessions. 



MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY 



The people of this colony are not chargeable with the causes of its 

 present depression. The trade was fairly and legitimately carried 

 on, exhibiting none of those wild speculations which brought ruin 

 on other colonies, but sustaining itself without bounty or protection, 

 and had our natural rights been preserved the necessity for this 

 appeal would not have arisen. But for purposes of Imperial Policy 

 the best portions of our Fisheries were handed over to Foreign rivals, 

 whose operations have brought Your Majesty's loyal subjects to 

 their present alarming state. 



It will not be a matter of surprise when we acquaint Your Majesty 

 that from the pressure created by all these adverse circumstances. 

 and the diminution of our revenue, the colony has within the last 

 six years contracted a debt of One Hundred Thousand Pounds. 



The cession of so large a portion of our Fisheries by Your Maj- 

 esty's Royal Predecessors is the only intelligible cause of the evils 

 which necessitated this debt. 



We therefore humbly submit that the Imperial Government should 

 relieve us from the liabilities which are so clearly the result of the 

 sacrifices forced on the colony by the measures adopted for Imperial 

 purposes alone. 



