72 FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE 



by putting our duties upon such things as" involve competition with 

 our industries at home. 



I do not think we are open to the charge of being very selfish, 

 because we have opened our shores and all the wealth of our country 

 to the milUons of all the nations of Europe. We have given to them 

 freely, without thought of their competition, of all the benefits that 

 the richness of our land and the security of our government could 

 afford; but we have said that in raising our necessary revenue we 

 will impose the tax so that it shall contribute to the good, the cloth- 

 ing, the prosperity of those who come to us. And I submit that 

 there ought not to be a construction put upon this treaty which 

 will deprive us of the benefit of it unless we are wilHng to buy the 

 benefit over again, by changing the general fiscal policy of our gov- 

 ernment for the benefit of the government of Newfoundland. 



I pass to another proposition, passing off the narrow field of the 

 particular situation in which we are involved in Newfoundland 

 through the execution of this purpose that could be executed only 

 by destroying our treaty right, to a more general consideration. 

 It is that this situation is the situation that must always be antic- 

 ipated in the case of grants of this character — I mean of this 

 generic character; grants which constitute a perpetual burden 

 granted to one country upon the territory of another. 



A question has been raised as to why such grants need exemp- 

 tion from the power of municipal regulation and limitation by 

 municipal legislation, while trading rights do not. It is because of 

 the ingrained, innate distinction between the two. Trading rights 

 are temporary. The vast number of trading treaties all, so far as 

 I know, are temporary. When circumstances change they expire. 

 They are made for such periods that no change is to be anticipated. 

 One can make an agreement for ten years, five years, or perhaps 

 for fifteen or twenty years, forecasting what the course of develop- 

 ment may be, and with reasonable certainty that no change of 

 conditions will make a stipulation that is advantageous to one's 

 country to-day disadvantageous before the period ends. They 

 are reciprocal and mutually beneficial. An undue restriction upon 

 one side immediately meets with some restriction upon the other 

 side; and the advantage that is obtained by one country, cannot 

 be restricted, limited, modified, changed, taken away, in whole or 



