for cod, the heads serving as lobster bait, the body being dried in the usual 

 way. A few men were employed in preparing the lobster, cooking it and sol- 

 dering the cans. Two fishermen were used per boat. They could easily put 

 out, watch, haul, and rebait two hundred traps per day. Ten boats, usually 

 dories, were thus fishing for each vessel. Each of them caught on an aver- 

 age, 350 lobsters per day. 



Now, at the same time of the Bait-Bill, the Newfoundland authorities be- 

 gan to oppose the French exploitation of the lobster fishery. 



In one particular case, they had some cause. In this same year, 1886, 

 one French outfitter, M. Lemoine, built at the island of St. Jean a lobster 

 establishment. The latter was made of wood but the boiler for cooking the 

 lobsters involved the construction of a brick chimney. No further pretext 

 was needed to motivate a protest to London by the Newfoundland government 

 that a structure of permanent character had been created on the French 

 Shore, in violation of the treaties. The French government had to yield. Mr. 

 Lemoine had to tear down the brick chimney. He replaced it with a move- 

 able sheet iron chimney, and continued his exploitation in the following sea- 

 sons. 



In revenge, the French government gave strict orders to the commander 

 of the naval station that any violations of the French Shore would not be tol- 

 erated in the future. It even demanded the closing of many Newfoundland 

 lobster establishments, in particular that which had been established by a 

 Mr. Shearn in the bay of Igornachoix. 



The British Foreign Office responded to this by demanding the closing of 

 French lobster establishments, under the pretext that the treaties did not au- 

 thorize the French fishermen to practice any other industry than those con- 

 nected with the catching and drying of cod. 



Against this pretension, the French jurists recalled the original text, in 

 Latin, of the Treaty of Utrecht: 



"Subditis gallicis piscaturam exercire et pisces in terra excicarre per- 

 missum erit. " 



The right of fishing and the right of drying were there carefully sej .ra- 

 ted, and there was no question of limiting the first of these rights to cod a- 

 lone. It was then evident that the right of all kinds of fishing was ace orded 

 the French. 



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