Newfoundland and the Flag.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19460, 6 November 1928, Page 10

Newfoundland and the Flag.

It must have been mildly disturbing to those of our readers who had eyes for such things to read in yesterday's Press that "an ally of Sir Richard " Squires," the new leader of the Newfoundland Government* puts dollars and cents before sentiment, and suggests that Si* Richard will sell himself and his country to the United States. If the Old Country is being " trampled "on," Newfoundland will not, we are told, stand idly by, but if the new Premier can get more dollars and cents for his people without "'injury to the "Old Flag," or if his people see an opportunity of doing this for themselves, then/we ate to understand, 75 per dent, of them, if a referendum is taken, will transfer themselves cheerfully to the proteotion of the Stars and Stripes. Sir Richard Squires himself, however, has "made no statement," and when Sir William Coaker is not the new Premier's "ally" he is leader of the "Fishermen's Protective Union," so that Newfoundland is not lost yet. Neither is Labrador sold yet, though a sale to Canada of to the United States will, Sir William Coaker says, "be "among the results of the Opposition "victory at the polls." We dan hardly pretend to much in* terest in Labrador in New Zealand, except as the home of Dr. Grenfell and the place where " huskies " occasionally

come from. But when the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council decided eighteen months ago that the watershed was the natural boundary between Quebec and Labrador, and that all Labrador across this watershed (except one or two areas which we need not bother about) should belong to Newfoundland, The Times said that the Committee had "seldom had to pronounce upon a larger subject or one "pregnant with more important possibilities." It was difficult then to understand what The Times meant, especially when it went on to say that " the issue was worthy the Judicature " of a Roman Senate," since there was no excitement of any kind in Canada, and the chief concern of Newfoundlanders seemed to be that they had won thirty million dollars. The question at issue was whether Newfoundland or Quebec should own a pieoe of territory 10,000 square miles larger than Newfoundland itself, most of it a dismal wilderness under ice and snow nine months of the year, but containing vast spruce forests and unlimited waterbower for hydro-electric development. Legally the judgment was interesting because the Committee was not called On to say what the boundary ought to be, but simply to say what certain documents, some of Which, went back

160 years, really meant. It was agreed that Newfoundland was given the " coast " of Labrador in 1763, so that what the Committee had to decide was what was meant by " coast," and decision was made all the more difficult by the fact that nobody, until a few years ago, careid- It was only when both sides woke up to the fact that timber and water were worth something that the dispute began to be serious, and then Quebec (or Canada) said that the coast was merely a narrow strip one mile deep from the sea, while Newfoundland said that it was all the land which drained to the sea; and Newfoundland was held to be right. The point is, however, that although the Canadians were disappointed with the decision they comforted themselves with the thought that the lost territory was after all remaining under the British Flag. They thought also that it would not be long before Newfoundland came into the Union, and that in the meantime investment of Canadian capital in Labrador would go on as usual. Those who hoped that the inclusion of Newfoundland would be one of the events of the Dominion's Jubilee have of course been disappointed, and they will no doubt be disappointed also if they expect now to buy Labrador at the price at which it was offered to Canada before the dispute was referred to the Privy Council (thirty million dollars). Whatever Newfoundland's present "humour" is, its estimate of the value of the recovered territory will not have declined any since the award, nor will it be likely to decline under competition from the United States. But the safest estimate of Newfoundland's " humour," and the

best answer to Sir William Coaker's melancholy prediction, is the fact that the dispute was referred to the Privy Council in the first place. Newfoundland would not have been very willing to trust itself to the judgment of Britain if it had all the time been getting ready to sell itself to America. We paid little attention in New Zealand when the Privy Council's judgment was announced, because we were busy at the time with the entertainment of the Duke and Duchess of York, but if we had not been so occupied we should have noticed that in Canada itself, and also in Australia and in the Homeland, the material consequences of the judgment were considered to be far less important than the fact that two self-governing Dominions had shown themselves so ready to accept a judgment given at the heart of the Empire.