ANGLO-FRENCH RELATIONS.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4295, 2 March 1901, Page 4

ANGLO-FRENCH RELATIONS.

Our cablegrams have announced that the Legislative Assembly ol : Newfoundland has extended the “ modus vivendi” in regard to tlio French shore until December. This means that a permanent amicable settlement of tin; fisheries question has been again postponed. Under the existing arrangement fifteen French and forty-five colonial factories are given control of the- entire lobster (.mining industry, and tbe rest of Hu; 14,000 inhabitants of the Treaty Coast are prohibited from trapping or canning the crustaceans, or even Belling them to anyone but-the favoured monopolists. If any person in rush enough, to enter the business on his own account, he is swooped down upon by British warships, and his stock and plant are destroyed. Under tneir treaty rights, which arc of nearly two hundred years’ standing, the French control 700 miles of the shore, and as their boundary lino- runs half a mile inland from high-water mark, it will ho easily understood that, as Mr Chamberlain. says, “the French have strangled . our colony of Newfoundland.” This has not been done by the violation of the treaty rights, hut by persistently pushing those rights to the uttermost. For instance, within the proscribed halfmile radius no Newfoundlander may build a, house, tlicd, or wharf, or p; rinauoiit structure of any kind unless by the permission of the. I'reiicn, who, by jtho way, cannot build any permanent structures on 'the' limited area Hiom- ! solves. The French have completely blocked the development of the conn- ; try, and on such enterprises as tho con--1 structiou of railways, harbours or bridges ■ on-tho-Treaty Coast, have nlaced an embargo, or at beet tolerated their construction on sufferance. Tho curious point about this question L, that tho maintenance -of these rights is a continuous drain upon the French taxpayer, who contributes bounties to the ; ood-fidung arid lobster-trapping industries of Newfoundland, although only some five hundred Frenchmen arc engaged on the Treaty shore. Cod-fishing, even with' the aid of bounties, hardy manages to exist. There is, therefore, no reason why France- should decline to abrogate the Treaty of Utrecht for aspecified cash indemnity. Even as » naval station, according to Admiral B-c----veillcre, the Treaty shore lias “no -.-oit of value for the French navy.” ft was .hoped that tho French Government 'would have effected a, settlement of thc_ , difficulty long ere this. A French diplomatist has asserted that anything less than tho ceding of Gambia by the Bri ■ tish for the Newfoundland- shore would ha inadequate, but it is hardly likely that such solid coiuxrcnsation will bo granted. Since- that proposal was made, the question of the New Hebrides has been revived, and it may be that the adjustment necessary in the Pacific will be included in the negotiations for a final settlement of the difficulties that have so long been a drag upon the progress of Newfoundland.