THE PEOPLE OF THE COAST 173 
lands have been made to Canadian firms in Sandwich Bay 
and Hamilton Inlet, covering about two thousand square 
miles in all. Grants to fishing firms have apparently been 
made to Baine, Johnston & Company at Battle, to Isaac 
Mercer at Long Tickle, to Job Brothers at Blane Sablon 
and Indian Harbour, and to a few others at other points. 
The policy of the Newfoundland government has always 
been in theory to leave the land free to any one, so that 
when one man leaves it another may make use of his former 
situation. Presumably this is on the assumption that 
nothing of value will be left behind. But though no legal 
conveyance has been made, men who fish any particular 
place, and even move a stone to “spread fish on,” will claim 
that place, though they have not been using it for years, 
and the courts at home have upheld them. It leaves the 
land about the harbours in a very anomalous and undesirable 
condition. There are fishermen anxious to come and settle, 
there is land unused, and with no marks on it; yet either 
some one refuses to allow them to settle or they dare not 
settle for fear some one may arise who will some day eject 
them. Several of these cases have come before me as 
magistrate on the coast. 
Labrador has no representation, and no one is appointed 
to look after its interests. The Governor’s Report for 1906 
does not put the matter one iota too strongly. The follow- 
ing paragraph taken from it is very significant, when the 
varied experience of its author in other out-of-the-way 
parts of the world is taken into consideration: — 
“Tf the difficulties of representation are considered to be 
too great, then there remains the obvious alternative of ap- 
pointing a minister, or, at least, a secretary for Labrador, 
