ARGUMENT OF MR. ROOT 43 



whole grand policy of Newfoundland is to be considered and the 

 separate acts are to be relegated to their proper positions under 

 that poUcy. 



The first consideration' in tracing this poHcy is one which has 

 frequently been referred to here in respect of the purchase of bait. 

 Our fishermen would rather buy bait in Newfoundland than take it, 

 and there are several reasons for that. The first natural reason is 

 that they could better use their time catching cod-fish than in 

 catching bait; and it is more convenient and inexpensive, either 

 by purchase or employment, to have the Newfoundlanders provide 

 them with the supply of bait, and to go on to the fishing fields, where 

 they can spend their time taking cod-fish. And, as Sir James 

 Winter tells us, they have always bought bait. There never was 

 any practical Umitation upon the buying of bait until the Bait 

 Act of 1887, the first Bait Act, which merely prescribed a license, 

 evincing a purpose to take into the hands of the goverimient 

 control of the business of selling and buying bait. But the Ucenses 

 were issued luitil 1905, when they were cut off. During all that 

 long course of years a population grew up along the western and 

 southern coast — a sterile coast, as you wiU see before long, selected 

 for the locus of the grant to the United States in 18 18 because it 

 was sterile and afforded no invitation to population. A population 

 grew up on the basis of the business of catching and selling bait 

 to French and to Americans. It was their means of livelihood. 

 The quotations from the reports of Captain Anstruther, the British 

 naval ofl&cer that Mr. Elder referred to, show what the situation 

 was. The only money that these poor fellows on the coast ever 

 got they got from the Americans. As Captain Anstruther says, 

 what they had been doing before was to work imder the trade or 

 barter system, with such local business concerns as would buy from 

 them. They would bring in their fish and get a credit, and buy a 

 pair of boots, or an oiler, or molasses, or pork, and have it charged, 

 and so on. The first money they ever got, and the only money 

 they got, came from the Americans. But all that is in Captain 

 Anstruther's report, and I shall not dwell on it. But a custom, a 

 practice, and a population finding their means of livelihood from 

 this trade had grown up on the treaty coast, until down came the 

 axe in 1905 and cut that means off. 



