ARGUMENT OF MR. ROOT SS 



a cove, inlet, or other place, to an extent not exceeding sixty barrels for any one 

 voyage, to be used as bait in prosecuting the said Bank fishery in the said 

 vessel." 



Now Sir James Winter explained that very frankly as being 

 called for by the necessities of the Newfoundland bank fishermen. 

 They had to have bait, and accordingly here was the statute 

 authorizing them to take bait — no seine Umitation, no Sunday 

 limitation — "any law to the contrary notwithstanding." New- 

 foundland bank fishermen may take their bait as best they can 

 and when they can. 



Yet upon the full length of the treaty coast no one but a New- 

 foundland fisherman is at Hberty to take bait with a seine or herring 

 trap. Everywhere off the treaty coast Newfoundlanders can take 

 herring for any purpose, with herring traps and herring seines, if 

 they see fit. And everywhere — treaty coasts or non-treaty coasts 

 — Newfoundlanders engaged in the bank fishing may take their 

 bait. 



Now, there is a shore protection statute — a statute for the 

 protection of Newfoundland fishermen against all the world. I 

 do not know that they had Americans particularly in view in that 

 discrimination which they made, but the fact that they did include 

 the whole American treaty coast in this prohibition would seem 

 to indicate it. They certainly meant to stand for Newfoundland 

 fishermen against all the rest of mankind; and they did it, and they 

 did it effectively if the British theory be true that the grant of the 

 treaty of 1818 to the United States is subject to the British right 

 of legislation. 



The Sunday provision, introduced in 1876, is another illus- 

 tration. It was not religious fervor, because it did not prohibit 

 the taking of cod-fish, and cod-fish is the great industry of New- 

 foundland. The great mass of this population are taking cod- 

 fish. They can do that on Sunday. But it is the practice and 

 the custom of the herring fishers who go to the places where 

 the herring come in in schools to want their day in the week 

 to go home to their families; and they do not want anybody 

 competing with them when they do go home to their families. 

 And they put this prohibition upon this particular industry to 

 keep competitors from taking the herring while they wanted to 



