The Newfoundland Trouble.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 4979, 21 May 1891, Page 4

The Newfoundland Trouble.

WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT. The Newfonndland difficulty is thus summarised by the Times :—" The Treaty of Utrecht substantially gave England the absolute possession of Newfoundland, till then obstinately disputed with France ; bat, unfortunately, there were reserved to the latter Power certain rights over the * French shore,' then of no commercial importance whatever, which have sown the seeds of a prolonged international conflict. By the Inches of our diplomatists, these rights were allowed to survive not only the treaties of the 18th century, but those which followed the downfall of Napoleon. The colony of Newfoundland has thus been crippled throughout the whole of its career by the presence of a foreign Power on a large portion of its coasts, with rights not of possession, but of occupancy for fishing purposes. ITie French claim that, from Cape Kay. on the west coast of the island, going northward to Cape St. John, on the east coast, they have au exclusive riglit of taking and coring fish. The result of their contention is that they made this right extend "to the practical prohibition of the use of British soil by British subjects either for or mining purposes. According to the French view, the Treaty of Utrecht and those subsequent treaties which confirmed it forbade all fixed settlement of British subjects on the coasts front Cape Ray to Cape St. John. A his the Newfoundlanders most vehemently contest. At the same time they argue that the rights of catching and curing fish on the so-called ' French shore,' conceded to France by the Treaty of Utrecht, do not and cannot include the privilege of taking lobsters on the coast in question, and setting up 'canning' establishments there. The Newfoundland colonists deny that the French have any treaty rights of fishing on the French shore ; they claim a concurrent right for themselves, so long as they do not interfere with the French and, though they admit they are prohibited from setting up permauent fishing establishments on these coasts, they do not acknowledge they are precluded from engaging in and spending money «P?n mining or agricultural operations. The consequence of this diplomatic incapacity in former days has been that Franee and England have had a standing cause of trouble, only prevented from coming to a head by the good sense of statesmen at Home and of the naval officers on the Newfoundland station. The Newfoundlanders, not unnaturally, have endeavored to make the position uncomfortable for the French by legislating against the sale of bait, and by setting up the argument that the right of fishing, enforced in the interests of France by treaty, does not cover the right to take and " can " lobsters. At the date of the treaty of Utrecht, and even at the time of the fall of Napoleon, lobsters were commercially • insignificant because "canning' was unknown. Moreover, the bounty system, recently set up by the French, had. of course no existence at that time. The Newfoundlanders, however, reckoned upon making use of the prohibition of lobster catching to convince the French that they were not acting wisely in driving the colony to the wall. This is the sum and substance of the colonial case, and presented in the pipers that have now been laid before Parliament. It will, accordingly, be understood why the colonists are already angry because Her Majesty's Government have agreed to go to arbitration on the lobster-catching question."