1 88 THE NEWFOUNDLAND FISHERY QUESTION. 



At preliminary conferences held in Newfoundland, these measures had nearly been 

 agreed to by Mr. Thomas and Captain Fabvre ; but Captain Fabvre was desirous of 

 retaining for France, in addition to the exclusive rights above mentioned, her right of 

 fishing, curing fish, &c., at Cod Roy, Red Island, Port-i-Port, and Lark Harbour, 

 and to acquire for the French a ' ' concurrent " right of fishery on the coast of Lab- 

 rador. 



The instructions, however, to the French Commissioner did not admit of his 

 negotiating on the above-mentioned principles, and as no new propositions were 

 brought forward by the French Government up to the month of May 1847, the nego- 

 tiations fell through. 



NEGOTIATIONS IN 1851. 

 On the application of the French Government in 1851 negotiations were renewed. 

 Sir A. Perrier being again directed to proceed to Paris to act as British Commissioner, 

 M. de Bon being appointed on the part of France. 



The British Commissioner was instructed to invite proposals from the French 

 Commissioner such as might form a starting-point in the negotiations. 



M. de Bon accordingly proposed, on the part of France, to admit the right of 

 British subjects to inhabit the Bay of St. George, or, in other terms, to give up the 

 exclusive right of fishery in that bay, to which they considered themselves entitled by 

 the Treaty of 1783. In return for this concession he demanded : — 



I. The right to purchase and fish tor bait (herring and capelin) on the south 



coast of Newfoundland, without re.striction. 

 :i. The right to fish durmg two months of the year (without curing or drying on 

 shore) on that part of the coast of Labrador situated between the Isles 

 Vertes and the Isles St. Modeste, both included ; and 

 3. The right of fishery at Belle Isle North, in the Straits, which the French 

 Commissioner asserted was enjoyed by the French up to 1841, without any 

 demur on the part of Great Britain. 

 The concessions demanded by the French negotiator v^ere not considered admis- 

 sible, and the British Commissioner, in order to overcome the difficulties arising out of 

 the claim of Great Britain to a concurrent right of fishery, suggested that the ques- 

 tion would be best settled if the rights of the fishermen of the two nations were kept 

 separate and distinct. In order to carry out this suggestion, he proposed that the 

 French rights should be made exclusive as against British subjects from Cape St. John 

 to some point on the western coast, such as Cape Verte (Green Point, to the north of 

 Bonne Bay) ; the French, on the other hand, to renounce their right altogether on the 

 remainder of the coast, which would be that part where the British had been in the 

 habit of carrying on the herring fishery and other fisheries incidental to the require- 

 ments of a fixed population. 



The French negotiator offered no objection to the plan of recognising the French 

 " exclusive right " on a diminished extent of coast ; but he contended for the reten- 

 tion of a " concurrent right " on that portion of the coast on which their exclusive 

 claim might be renounced, and for other advantages as well, such as admission, con- 

 currently with British fishermen, to the fisheries of Labrador and the North Belle Isle, 

 and to the "bait fishery" on the southern coast, all of which, he maintained, were 

 necessary, as an equivalent for admitting British subjects to a free "concurrent 

 right " on the lower portion of the western coast. 



The British Commissioner was disposed to accept the demands of the French so 

 far as to extend the French fishery to North Belle Isle, and also to remove all restric- 

 tions on the purchase of " bait," on condition that the French should entirely 

 renounce their rights between Cape Verte and Cape Ray ; and in June 1855 he for- 



