214 THE NEWFOUNDLAND FISHERY QUESTION. 



This, prima facie, appears to be one of the most extraordinary 

 episodes in the history of the relations of a mighty Empire, such 

 as Great Britain, with the smallest, and the weakest, of her 

 Colonial dependencies. This episode is memorable and unique in 

 history for this reason, that it is not, and has not been, a struggle 

 by the. Newfoundlanders through insurrection or war, (such as the 

 pages of history too often record, of an heroic people struggling by 

 force of arms against the despotism of its Suzerain), but it is, and 

 has been, a firm and uncompromising resistance by Newfoundland 

 against the encroachments of France, against the attempts of a 

 powerful European State, to weaken and to strangle its industrial 

 and commercial life, and what is far more serious, to destroy the 

 territorial and maritime Sovereignty of Great Britain over the Colony 

 of Newfoundland. 



If this action of Newfoundland for the past forty-five years, has 

 been extraordinary in resisting the negotiations, and in rejecting the 

 various Conventions, promoted and agreed upon by Great Britain 

 and France for the settlement of this territorial question, (for we must 

 look upon it as a territorial rather than as a commercial question in 

 dispute), yet, on the other hand, it has been constitutional, and in 

 accordance with its Treaty rights, and as proof thereof, we will cite 

 the charter granted by the Government of England to Newfoundland, 

 26th March, 1857, and it is as follows : 



" That the rights enjoyed by the Community of Newfoundland are not to be ceded 

 or exchanged without their consent, and that the constitutional mode of submitting 

 measures for that consent, is by laying them before the Colonial Legislature. " 



And further : 



' ' That the consent of the community of Newfoundland is regarded by her Majesty's 

 Government as the essential preliminary to any modification of these territorial or 

 maritime rights. " 



And in the exercise of that constitutional right, the Legislature of 

 Newfoundland, immediately on being informed by a telegraphic 

 message that a teinporary modus vivendi, for a period of twelve 

 months had been concluded on the 14th March, 1890, between Great 

 Britain and France, relative to the questions in dispute, they adopted 

 the following resolution : • 



' ' That the commencement, continuation, and conclusion of the negotiations for 

 the ' modus vivendi ' without the knowledge and consent of the community or Legis- 

 lature were in direct violation of our constitutional rights, and of the particular en- 

 gagement with the people of Newfoundland which her Majesty's Government volun- 

 tarily made ; against which violation we record our most earnest protest, and to which 

 we as a free people will never consent." 



