42 FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE 



and for that bait is necessary for the Americans. The Newfound- 

 landers carry on trap fishing there. They are on shore, and they 

 rxm their traps out. But our fishermen use bait; they use a bul- 

 tow. Then there is, of course, the cod-fishing on the south coast, 

 as Sir James Winter has told the Tribunal. There is also the winter 

 herring fishery, which has a relation to the bank fishery in this: 

 the bank fishery is a simimer fishery. The ships leave the Massa- 

 chusetts and Maine coasts at the very end of winter, the beginning 

 of spring, the last of February or the first of March, and they go 

 up to the banks, take as many fish as they can with the bait that 

 they can carry and keep, and then they go to the nearest point to 

 get bait, and back to the banks. When they have exhausted the 

 supply of bait, which is limited not merely by carrying capacity, 

 but by keeping capacity, they go back again, and to and fro for 

 bait. Even if bait were imUmited down on the Massachusetts 

 coast, the long voyage for a saiUng vessel to get it and back again 

 would exhaust the time which they should spend in catching cod- 

 fish. The bank season ends along in the autumn, and the vessels 

 which are employed in it must either lie up, and the men employed 

 in it sit idle, until the next spring, or some other occupation must 

 be found. This winter herring fishery affords occupation for vessels 

 and men during the off-season of the bank fishery, and so enables 

 that fishery to be prosecuted profitably; and it has been of very 

 material effect in making possible the profitable prosecution of the 

 bank fishery. 



There have been, in regard to these fishing rights in Newfoimd- 

 land, two hues of action on the part of the Newfoundland govern- 

 ment, both constituting the expressions of a single policy: a line 

 of legislation relating to the sale of bait, and a line of legislation 

 regarding the taking of fish, both constituting but expressions of a 

 single pohcy, which is the policy stated by Sir Robert Bond — the 

 control of the bait supply, compelling competitors to recognize 

 Newfoundland as "the mistress of the northern seas" in respect 

 of fishing. 



I shall ask the Tribunal to bear with me while I trace those two 

 lines of action, begging the members of the Tribunal to keep in 

 mind what I have said: that no one act is to be treated by itself, 

 that neither line of action is to be taken by itself, but that the 



