THE RIGHTS OF NEWFOUNDLAND.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 162, 9 July 1907, Page 4

THE RIGHTS OF NEWFOUNDLAND.

, It is to be feared, tliat unless the Imperial authorities take "warning in time, they will create a very critical situation for themselves in their dealings with Newfoundland and the United States. When "Sir Kobert Bond was in London, recently, 'he did. not hesitate to express himself very strongly as to the treatment that Newfoundland had received from England, in connection with the fisheries dispute. Our readers may, recollect that England has negotiated an arrangement with the United States by virtue of which American fishermen in Newfoundland- waters are allowed certain rights denied them by Newfoundland law, and also certain privileges that Canada and Newfoundland have refused to concede to their own fishermen. This Anglo-American convention was settled in spite of the fact that Newfoundland had already passed a specific Act to prevent the Americans from securing the precise advantages that the convention has granted them. We believe that such a step on the part -of the Imperial Government is unprecedented, and it seems to us to justify completely the indignation expressed by the 'people of Newfoundland and their representatives. Imagine a dispute of such a. kind arising between New Zealand and Australia—imagine that we have passed , laws to prevent Australian fishermen coming into our coastal waters; imagine that we then learn that the Imperial Government has made an arrangement with, the Australians, not only giving them the privileges we have refused, but allowing them to use nets of a kind* tnat our own fishermen are forbidden to use; and you have a close parallel to the position in which Newfoundland finds itself to-day. Would not the people of New Zealand protest with one voice against such an abrogation of our constitutional rights? And in the case of Newfoundland the strong feeling roused by this extraordinary step has been embittered by the memory of the long controversy between Newfoundland and the United States over these fishing rights, and the off-handed fashion in 'which the colony's claims have been ignored in the past by EngFand. We can hardly believe that the Liberal Government will try to force the convention upon the colonists by special Act of Parliament. For even as it now stands the policy of England toward Newfoundland has been more arbitrary and more arrogantly contemptuous of her rights than tine policy that drove the American colonists to rebel. A very little more provocation of this kind would epeedily enable us to discover a more obvious

and effective Teason than either tion or Free Trade for, the possible. dk integration of the Empire. '" '. >