Newfoundland: SIR ROBERT PINSENT has favoured us with a long letter on the French Treaty Question in Newfoundland, which we regret we have, not space to print in full. He declares that the colonists are quite willing to become a party to arbitration, on a reasonable recasting of the proposals of reference made by Her Majesty’s Government. They simply object to any partial arbitration. The territorial question is infinitely more important than any question of fisheries. The French have “made their fishing claims the basis of a territorial claim to a large part of the island which is absolutely without warrant in the treaties. The latter expressly declare that the territory belongs wholly to Great Britain. It follows therefore that such rights of landing to dry fish as the French enjoy must be exercised solely under our jurisdiction. The French may have the right to land for a certain purpose, but, like any other persons enjoying the liberty of trade or manufacture on our soil, they must hold themselves absolutely subject to the local government and administration. If these oppress them, and hinder the exercise of the right, they have a ground of complaint; but they cannot attempt to preclude the possibility of oppression by claiming a territorial mastery. Yet this is what the French do. They claim the power of excluding the Newfoundlanders from the full enjoyment of their own seaboard, and they exercise it in the most rigorous and offensive manner. The arbitration proposed is confined to a comparatively unimportant detail. Until the French resign their claim to prevent British settlement on British ground, the Newfoundland difficulty will remain. All this is unexceptionable, yet we take leave to say that no settlement will be possible without the help of the colonists. They must show a conciliatory disposition, not only towards the mother-country, which has their interests at heart, but towards the French, who enjoy ample powers of refusal in regard to every arrangement proposed. We cannot exactly proceed by ultimatums in negotiation with a great and friendly Power. The colonists should set the French an example of respect for engagements by scrupulously observing their own. The Report of the Joint Committee at St. John’s threatens to block the way.
Transcribed in whole or part from scanned originals: Presented with or without modified text and punctuation. For absolute accuracy refer to the original newspapers. Source: The British Newspaper Archive
Referenced
GRO0747 Hennock: Robert John Pinsent: 1834 – 1893