QUESTION ONE. 85 



Great Britain was that, if France chose this extreme method of 

 maintaining her rights, Great Britain would employ similar methods 

 against any infraction of the treaty by French subjects and would 

 require them strictly to conform themselves to the terms of the treaty. 

 The British Government again evidenced its consciousness of the 

 nature of the French right, when, on June 12, 1884, the Earl of 

 Derby wrote to the governor of Newfoundland urging the accept- 

 ance of the arrangement then lately concluded with France, giving 

 France extensive rights of interference in the waters of Newfound- 

 land in the protection of her fisheries, and said : 



In return for the advantages to the colony above enumerated, 

 Her Majesty's Government would, under the present arrangement, 

 recognize little more than the de facto state of things existing as 

 regards the acts of authority exercised every fishing season by the 

 French cruizers in the waters over which the French treaty rights 

 extend, and the exercise of these acts on the part of French cruizers 

 would only take place in cases of infraction of the very reasonable 

 provisions of this arrangement, and then only in the absence of any of 

 Her Majesty's cruizers. 



On September 20, 1886, Count d'Aubigny wrote to the Earl of 

 Iddesleigh in the following peremptory terms: 



MY LORD: A decree of the Newfoundland government, dated 

 che 9th August last, has prohibited lobster fishing for three years, 

 from the 30th September next, in Rocky Harbour (Bonne Bay. 

 " French shore ") . 



I am instructed to inform your excellency that, in view of the 

 fishery right conferred on France by the treaties in the part of the 

 island to which the decree applies, a right which can evidently 

 not be restricted in its exercise, it is impossible for my Government 

 to recognize in any way the validity of the measure" taken by the 

 Newfoundland authorities. 6 



The decree of the Newfoundland Government, to which Count 

 d'Aubigny referred, was professedly for the purpose of preserving 

 the lobster fishery by establishing a closed season for three years. 



On July 5, 1887, the Marquis of Salisbury responded to the 

 statement of Count d'Aubigny as follows: 



With reference to Count d'Aubigny's letter of the 20th Septem- 

 ber last, in regard to the prohibition by the Newfoundland govern- 

 ment of fishing for lobsters in Bonne Bay, I have the honor to 

 acquaint your Excellency that a despatch has been received from the 

 governor of that colony in which he states that his Government have 

 given a formal assurance that the prohibition will not be enforced 

 against French citizens to whom there had not been any intention of 

 applying it* 



U. S. Counter Case, Appendix, 308. 



6 U. S. Counter Case, 19, 20 ; Appendix, 316, 317. 



U. S. Counter Case, Appendix, 319. 



' U. S. Counter .Case, Appendix, 322. 



