OUB SEA FISHERIES. 227 



St. George's Bay to quit their rights, and to cease to 

 use the shores as they had always been accustomed 

 to — a notice equivalent to confiscating their property. 

 The President of the Chamber of Commerce then 

 wrote to the British Commandant on that station, 

 Sir Houston Stewart, complaining of these encroach- 

 ments, and he replied, that "The interpretation of 

 treaties must be left to the Imperial Government; " 

 and thus the matter stands,^-the treaty not being 

 definitely declared void, but being left to create bad 

 blood upon all sides, a cause of quarrel at a future 

 day, and a status on which to claim the whole of this 

 valuable property, whenever a favourable opportunity 

 may occur for doing so. 



It may be urged that a work of this nature is 

 hardly the right place to rake up treaties and matters 

 of Government ; but if these things affect the well- 

 being or cause the depression of our fisheries, I would 

 ask — how is it possible to consider in what way our 

 fisheries may be improved, and yet to ignore the 

 chief causes of their failure? I know that these 

 subjects are not popular studies, and that the merest 

 ad captandmn account is too often accepted by 

 Englishmen, instead of a searching inquiry into the 

 facts being exercised ; and it is owing to such care- 

 lessness that bad laws, or treaties injurious to our 

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