The Story of Newfoundland Part 9

3,000 Newfoundlanders enlisted in the Canadian and other forces (outside Newfoundland), but there is no statistical record of casualties regarding them, although it is known they were heavy.

(2) MONEY, ETC.

Total receipts, Cot Fund[55] $129,200 " " Aeroplane Fund 53,487 " " Red Cross Fund 151,500 " " Patriotic Fund 166,687

A War Loan of $6,000,000 was raised by Newfoundland.

A large quant.i.ty of Red Cross material, etc., was sent from the Dominion during the war to the various organizations overseas, in addition to many thousands of dollars worth of comforts for the troops.

Newfoundland provided the pay and allowances of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment (6,326 all ranks) and made up the difference in pay to bring the Royal (Newfoundland) Naval Reserve to the same scale as that of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, besides equipping the Royal Newfoundland Regiment before proceeding overseas.

FOOTNOTES:

[51] See a letter from the able correspondent of _The Times_ in Newfoundland, November 6th, 1900.

[52] P.T. M'Grath, "Newfoundland in 1911," p. 24.

[53] This question has already been referred to several times in the preceding pages (see especially beginning of chap. viii). It may be added here that in March 1906, the Prime Minister of Canada stated that the Government of Newfoundland was fully aware that the Government of Canada was ready to entertain a proposal for the entry of the island into the confederation.

[54] For the statement following the writer is indebted to Sir Edgar Bowring, the High Commissioner of Newfoundland.

[55] Instead of maintaining a hospital overseas, Newfoundland supported 301 beds in addition to 32 in Newfoundland.

CHAPTER X

THE FRENCH Sh.o.r.e QUESTION

It has been impossible in the above pages to avoid reference to the Anglo-French disputes in Newfoundland, but it seemed convenient to postpone a detailed examination of the question to a separate chapter.

No apology is necessary for such a chapter even in a work so slight as the present, for the French Sh.o.r.e question was chronically acute in Newfoundland, and the French claims, like George III.'s prerogative, were increasing, had increased, and ought to have been diminished. The dispute is partly historical, partly legal, and can only be explained by reference to doc.u.ments of considerable age.

The French connection with Newfoundland was encouraged by the nearness of Canada, and in quaint names, such as Bay Facheuse and Point Enragee, it has bequeathed lasting reminders. For centuries the French, like the Dutch, went on giving too little and asking too much.

By the time of Louis XIV. they had in fact established themselves--an _imperium in imperio_--upon the south coast, and William of Orange in the declaration of war against his lifelong enemy recited the English grievances:

"It was not long since the French took licences from the Governor of Newfoundland to fish upon that coast, and paid a tribute for such licences as an acknowledgment of the sole right of the Crown of England to that island; but of late the encroachments of the French, and His Majesty's subjects trading and fishing there, had been more like the invasion of an enemy than becoming friends who enjoyed the advantages of that trade only by permission."

The Treaty of Ryswick, in 1697, contained no mention of Newfoundland, and the French were, therefore, left in enjoyment of their possessory claims. In 1710 the splendid genius of Marlborough had brought Louis XIV. to his knees, and the arguments supplied by the stricken fields of Blenheim and Ramillies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet, should have made easy the task of English diplomacy. But from a corrupt political soil sprang the Treaty of Utrecht, the first leading instrument in the controversy of which we are attempting to collect the threads. The merits of the dispute cannot be understood without a careful study of Article 13 of the Treaty. It was thereby provided that:

"The island called Newfoundland, with the adjacent islands, shall from this time forward belong of right wholly to Britain, and to that end the town and fortress of Placentia, and whatever other places in the said island are in possession of the French, shall be yielded and given up within seven months from the exchange of the ratifications of this Treaty, or sooner if possible, by the most Christian King to those who have a commission from the Queen of Great Britain for that purpose. Nor shall the most Christian King, his heirs and successors, or any of their subjects, at any time hereafter lay claim to any right to the said island and islands, or to any part of it or them. Moreover it shall not be lawful for the subjects of France to fortify any place in the said island of Newfoundland, or to erect any building there, besides stages made of boards, and huts necessary and useful for drying of fish, or to resort to the said island beyond the time necessary for fishing and drying of fish. But it shall be allowed to the subjects of France to catch fish and to dry them on land in that part only, and in no other besides that, of the said island of Newfoundland, which stretches from the place called Cape Bonavista to the northern point of the said island, and from thence, running down by the western side, reaches as far as the place called Point Riche.

But the island called Cape Breta, as also all others, both in the mouth of the River St. Lawrence and in the Gulf of the same name, shall hereafter belong of right to the French, and the most Christian King shall have all manner of liberty to fortify any place or places there."

The Treaty of Paris, in 1763, confirmed this arrangement, and twenty years later the Treaty of Versailles contained the following provision upon the subject:

"The XIIIth Article of the Treaty of Utrecht and the method of carrying on the fishery, which has at all times been acknowledged, shall be the plan upon which the fishery shall be carried on there; it shall not be deviated from by either party; the French fishermen building only their scaffolds, confining themselves to the repair of their fishing vessels, and not wintering there; the subjects of His Majesty Britannic on their part not molesting in any manner the French fishermen during their fishing, nor injuring their scaffolds during their absence." But for the boundaries prescribed by the Treaty of Utrecht (viz. those limited by Cape Bonavista and Point Riche) new boundaries were subst.i.tuted, viz., those limited by Cape St. John round by the north to Cape Ray. The coast thus indicated came to be known as the "French sh.o.r.e."

As the declaration annexed to the above treaty was often relied upon by French diplomatists, it may be conveniently set forth in this place:

"... In order that the fishermen of the two nations may not give a cause of daily quarrels, His Britannic Majesty will take the most positive measures for preventing his subjects from interrupting in any manner by their compet.i.tion the fishery of the French during the temporary exercise of it which is granted to them.... His Majesty will ... for this purpose cause the fixed settlement which shall be found there to be removed, and will give orders that the French fishermen shall not be incommoded in the cutting of wood necessary for the repair of their scaffolds, huts, and fishing boats."

The t.i.tle of an Act of Parliament pa.s.sed in 1782 in pursuance of this treaty was also pressed into the service of the French contention:

"An Act to enable His Majesty to make such regulations as may be necessary to prevent the inconvenience which might arise from the compet.i.tion of His Majesty's subjects and those of the most Christian King in carrying on the fishery on the coasts of the island of Newfoundland."

No material alteration in the position took place from 1782 to 1792, and the Treaty of Peace of 1814 declared that "the French right of fishery at Newfoundland is replaced upon the footing upon which it stood in 1792."

On these doc.u.ments a very simple issue arose. According to the English contention their c.u.mulative effect was to give the French a concurrent right of fishery with themselves upon the coasts in question. It was maintained, on the other hand, by France that her subjects enjoyed an exclusive right of fishing along the so-called French sh.o.r.e.

It may be said at once that the course of English diplomacy was almost uniformly weak, and was in fact such as to lend no small countenance to the French contention. Thus, for many years it was the policy of the Home Government to discourage the colonists from exercising the right which was always alleged in theory to be concurrent. Nor did the Imperial complaisance end here. The French fishermen and their protectors from time to time put forward pretensions only to be justified by a revival of the sovereignty which was extinguished by the Treaty of Utrecht. Thus, they attempted systematically to prevent any English settlement at all upon the debatable sh.o.r.e. For residential, mining and agricultural purposes this strip would thus be withdrawn from colonial occupation. It is much to be regretted that these claims were not summarily repudiated. The Imperial Government, however, encouraged them by forbidding any grants of land along the area in dispute. Under these circ.u.mstances the theoretical a.s.sertion of British sovereignty by which the prohibition was qualified was not likely to be specially impressive. The islanders acquiesced in the decision with stolid patience, but, undeterred by the consequent insecurity of tenure, settled as squatters in the unappropriated lands. As recently as forty years ago their t.i.tle was still unrecognized, and the presence of thousands of settlers with indeterminate claims had become a dangerous grievance. In 1881 Sir William Whiteway, then Premier of the colony, paid a visit to England, and his powerful advocacy procured recognition for the t.i.tle of the settlers to their lands, and brought them within the pale of the Queen's law.

The French sh.o.r.e cod fishery was recently so poor compared with the Great Bank fishery that French fishermen abandoned the former for the latter; and, in fact, but for a recent development of the French claim, it would have been possible to say of the whole question _solvitur ambulando_.

The development referred to sprang from the growing lobster industry along the French sh.o.r.e. In 1874 and the following years lobster factories were erected by British subjects on the French sh.o.r.e, in positions where there was no French occupation and there were no French buildings. Here there was no violation of the Treaty of Utrecht provision, for the French were in no way restrained from "erecting stages made of boards, and huts necessary and useful for drying of fish," nor was there any violation of the declaration annexed to the Treaty of Versailles, that "His Britannic Majesty will take the most positive measures for preventing his subjects from interrupting in any way by their compet.i.tion the fishery of the French during the temporary exercise of it which is granted them." The "fishing" which was not to be interrupted by compet.i.tion was the fishery "which is granted to them," a limitation which throws us back at once upon the language of the earlier treaties. Now it is indisputably clear that the only fishing rights granted to the French were concerned with codfish. The lobster industry was then unknown; and the language used, and in particular "the stages and huts necessary and useful for drying fish" spoken of, are applicable to codfish and not to lobsters, for the canning industry was only of recent date, and lobsters, moreover, are not dried. No fishery other than that of the codfish could then have been contemplated. That this must have been abundantly clear is apparent from the memoirs of M. de Torcy, one of the negotiators of the treaty, who uses throughout the expression "morue" (codfish)--the liberty stipulated was "pecher et secher les morues" (to fish and dry codfish). The French, however, not content with objecting to the presence of English factories, erected factories of their own, comprehending them, it must be presumed, within the description "huts necessary and useful for the drying of fish." They contended, furthermore, that their rights were a part of the ancient French sovereignty retained when the soil was ceded to England. Such a claim was inadmissible on any view of the treaties. In fact, there was much to be said for the view that no _exclusive_ right of fishery of any sort was ever given to the French, in spite of the language of the celebrated Declaration. As Lord Palmerston wrote, some eighty years ago, to Count Sebastiani, in his unambiguous way: "I will observe to your Excellency, in conclusion, that if the right conceded to the French by the Declaration of 1783 had been intended to be exclusive within the prescribed district, the terms used for defining such right would a.s.suredly have been more ample and specific than they are found to be in that doc.u.ment; for in no other similar instrument which has ever come under the knowledge of the British Government is so important a concession as an exclusive privilege of this description accorded in terms so loose and indefinitive. Exclusive rights are privileges which from the very nature of things are likely to be injurious to parties who are thereby debarred from some exercise of industry in which they would otherwise engage. Such rights are, therefore, certain at some time or other to be disputed, if there is any maintainable ground for contesting them; and for these reasons, when negotiators have intended to grant exclusive grants, it has been their invariable practice to convey such rights in direct, unqualified, and comprehensive terms, so as to prevent the possibility of future dispute or doubt. In the present case, however, such forms of expression are entirely wanting, and the claim put forward on the part of France is founded simply upon inference and upon an a.s.sumed interpretation of words."

It was, in fact, as Lord Palmerston argued, a perfectly open contention that on the authorities no exclusive right was ever given to the French, but the demeanour of this country had been such as to render the position difficult and unconvincing. We are, however, upon much firmer ground when we come to close quarters with the French claims to rights of lobster fishing. The claim was first clearly advanced in 1888, that none but Frenchmen were ent.i.tled to catch lobsters and erect preserving factories upon the French sh.o.r.e. This at once elicited an incisive English remonstrance, in deference to which French diplomacy had recourse to the evasion that the factories were merely temporary. They were not, however, removed, and finally in 1889 further remonstrances by Lord Salisbury were met with the bold contention that these factories were comprehended within the language of the treaties. The English Government met this _volte face_ with a feeble proposal to resort to arbitration--a proposal which the islanders declined with equal propriety and spirit. The consequent position was vividly and faithfully stated by Sir Charles Dilke, in a pa.s.sage which may be quoted in full:

"Instead of protecting British fishermen in the prosecution of their lawful avocation, and resisting the new claim of the French, our Government, after failing to enforce the claim of the French, tried to go to arbitration upon it before a Court in which the best known personage was to have been M. de Martens, the hereditary librarian of the Russian Foreign Office, whose opinion on such points was hardly likely to be impartial. Luckily, the French added a condition, the enormity of which was such that the arbitration has never taken place, and it may be hoped now never will.

"While British officers were backed up by the Government in most arbitrary action on behalf of the French and against the colonists, the theory continued to be that the French pretensions were disputed by us. At the end of 1889 the Home Government sent for the Prime Minister of Newfoundland, who came to England in 1890. A _modus vivendi_ was agreed to preserving such British lobster factories as existed, and the French Government agreeing that they would undertake to grant no new lobster-fishing concessions 'on fishing grounds occupied by British subjects,' whatever that might mean. But the limitation was afterwards explained away, and the _modus vivendi_ stated to mean the _status quo_. The Colonial Government strongly protested against the _modus vivendi_, as a virtual admission of a concurrent right of lobster fishing prejudicial to the position of Newfoundland in future negotiation; and there can be no doubt that the adoption of the _modus vivendi_ by the British Government without previous reference to the colony, and against its wish, was a violation of the principle laid down by the then Mr Labouchere, when Secretary of State in 1857, and by Lord Palmerston. Our Government deny this, because they expressly reserved all questions of principle and right in the agreement with the French, and that is so, of course; but there can be no doubt about the effect of what they did.

"By an answer given by an Under-Secretary of State in the House of Commons, the views of the Newfoundland Government were misrepresented, it being stated that they 'were consulted as to the terms of the _modus vivendi_, which was modified to some extent to meet their views, although concluded without reference to them in its final shape'; but the Newfoundland Government insisted that the terms of the _modus vivendi_ had not been modified in accordance with their views, as they had protested against the whole arrangement. The Home Government quibbled and said that the answer showed that the Newfoundland Government were not responsible for the _modus vivendi_ as settled. Plain people, however, must continue to be as indignant as the colonists are at the misrepresentation and the breach of Mr Labouchere's principle.

"The terms of the _modus vivendi_ accord to unfounded pretensions the standing of reasonable claims, and confer upon the French the actual possession and enjoyment of the rights to which these claims relate.

Mr Baird refused to comply with the _modus vivendi_. Sir Baldwin Walker, commanding on the coast, landed a party of blue-jackets in 1891, and took the law into his own hands against Mr Baird, was sued for damages, and twice lost his case.[56] There had existed an Imperial Act under which Sir Baldwin Walker might have been protected, but it had been repealed when self-government was granted to Newfoundland. In the same year of 1891 a Newfoundland Act was pa.s.sed, under heavy pressure from the Home Government, compelling colonial subjects to observe the instructions of the naval officers to the extent of at once quitting the French sh.o.r.e if directed, and the Act was to be in force till the end of 1893. The Home Government had pa.s.sed a Bill through the House of Commons, and dropped it, before it received the Royal a.s.sent, only after the Prime Minister of Newfoundland had been heard at the bar of both Houses and had promised colonial legislation. The French Government have insisted that a British Act should be pa.s.sed; and Lord Salisbury, while declaring that there ought to be a permanent Colonial Act, has always refused to promise a British Act. To my mind, the Newfoundland people went too far in giving up their freedom by pa.s.sing the Act which I have named, an Act to which, had I been a member of the Newfoundland Legislature, nothing would have induced me to consent; and my sympathies are entirely with the Newfoundlanders in their refusal to part with their freedom, for all time, by making so monstrous a statute permanent."

The _modus vivendi_ treaty was periodically renewed by the Colonial Legislature with a submissiveness which would have seemed excessive if they had not been pressed with the shibboleth of Imperial interest. At the same time, signs of restiveness were not wanting. The complaints of the Newfoundlanders became more frequent, more insistent, and more emphatic. They pointed out that the French virtually claimed a monopoly of an 800-mile sh.o.r.e, which was entirely British of right, that in consequence they interfered with the development of the mining industry, and the extension of railways, and that thereby they were seriously hampering the progress of the colony. The case put forward by the colonists was historically strong, and there was much to be said for the contention that they were ent.i.tled to everything they claimed: on any view they could rightly complain of a cruel injustice, so long as the indolence or incompetence of English diplomacy suffered a debatable land to survive in the teeth of an undebatable argument.

In August, 1898, at the request of the Newfoundland Government, a Royal Commission was appointed by Mr Chamberlain, and sent out the following year, for the purpose of inquiring into the whole question of French treaty rights. A good deal of evidence was given by local colonists of acts of French aggression, and of consequent injury in person and property. But the report remained unpublished. Such aggression was in keeping with the instructions issued in 1895 by the French Premier and Foreign Minister to the commanders of the French warships on this station: "To seize and confiscate all instruments of fishing belonging to foreigners, resident or otherwise, who shall fish on that part of the coast which is reserved for our use"--instructions that amounted to an arbitrary a.s.sertion of territorial sovereignty.

And yet the actual interests of France were very meagre: thus in 1898, on a coastline where some 20,000 Newfoundlanders were settled in 215 harbours, there were only 16 French stations and 458 men on the 800-mile sh.o.r.e; in 1903 only 13 stations and 402 men.[57]

In 1901 when the vexed question came once again before the Newfoundland Legislature, the Government declared that in renewing the _modus vivendi_ for the following year, they did so only in consideration of the obstacles then in the way of the Imperial Government to securing a satisfactory settlement of the whole matter.

In 1904 the Newfoundland Government refused to relax the Bait Law any more; and France then consented to enter into the notable agreement, which once for all abolished the inveterate grievances and difficulties arising out of the "French sh.o.r.e" question. In consideration of certain territorial privileges in West Africa, France agreed to relinquish her rights as to landing and drying fish on the treaty sh.o.r.e, which had been recognized by the Treaty of Utrecht.

French subjects injured by this arrangement were to receive such compensation from Great Britain as would be awarded by a tribunal consisting of one representative of each contracting party, a.s.sisted by an umpire if necessary. The French were to enjoy the same rights as British subjects of fishing on the coast generally, and were permitted to take bait, which they had been forbidden to do by the Newfoundland Act of 1886. This convention did not affect the applicability of local law as to bait in regard to the non-treaty coast.

Newfoundland was satisfied with this change. After the ratification of the agreement, the new Governor, Sir William MacGregor, telegraphed to Mr Lyttelton, the Minister for the Colonies, asking him to convey to the King the people's acknowledgment of the "great boon" conferred by the Convention, which His Majesty was chiefly instrumental in initiating, and to the British Government for having safeguarded the interests of the colony in negotiations involving so many difficulties. That this view represented that of the population at large was shown by the return to office (October) of Sir Robert Bond and his colleagues with a very strong majority.

Soon afterwards an _entente cordiale_ was established between Newfoundland and the French colony of St. Pierre and Miquelon.

Thus, "the Anglo-French chapter--some four centuries long--closed; and the lobster, which darkened its closing paragraphs, ceased to be a force in history."[58]

FOOTNOTES: