THE BEHRING SEA V. NEWFOUNDLAND FISHERIES QUESTIONS: INTERVIEW WITH A NEWFOUNDLAND JUDGE. (Special Telegram from our own correspondent.) Sir Robert J. Pinsent, puisne judge of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland, who is at present on a visit to this country, was interviewed yester-day by our representative on the subject of the fisheries disputes. Sir Robert is perhaps one of the best living authorities on these questions. He has long been familiar with them in all their phases both in a judicial and in a legislative capacity. The articles contributed by him to leading British newspapers and reviews gave to the controversy a popular interest in England and imparted to the British public a decree of knowledge upon the subject which they never had before. Sir Robert’s judgment in the historic case of Baird v. Sir Baldwin Walker upon which there was an appeal to the Privy Council was confirmed the other day. Speaking of the French claims to the Newfoundland fisheries, Sir Robert said: ‘ I can claim to be as high an authority as anybody upon the fisheries question which so gravely concerns the interests and destinies of Newfoundland, and which is a very much more important subject than the Behring Sea question, having regard to the extent and value of British rights of property affected by it. The modus vivendi between France and Great Britain in reference to the rights of lobster fishing and canning will shortly expire with the statute which gives it legal force, and intimation has been given that since the local legislature of Newfoundland declines to pass the permanent Act, which contemplated arbitration, the Imperial Parliament will shortly be asked to adopt one. I regret to say that this branch of the difficulty standing alone is fast becoming, if it has not already become, one of little importance, and hardly calling for so formal and costly an adjustment.” The lobster industry is rapidly dying out, and ceasing to be remunerative, by reason of the depletion of the breeding grounds. On that part of the coast where the French possess treaty rights this branch of the Newfoundland fisheries is subject to no control by the Fisheries Commission, or by the Legislature of Newfoundland, or of France, and consequently, as in the case of the fur-bearing seals of Behring Sea. It would seem much more desirable that an agreement for the preservation of the lobster and the resuscitation of the industry should be arrived at in the interests of all parties than that a long diplomatic fight should take place over it. Legislation and diplomacy should be seriously directed to the final solution of a situation which mars the well-being of an important British colony. The time must be rapidly approaching when the French treaty question will again come on the tapis.” Sir Robert then proceeded to deal with the Behring Sea dispute with regard to which he said: “In Newfoundland we have no direct concern in the Behring Sea controversy. Of course we sympathise with the claims of our fellow subjects in Canada, particularly with such of our people— there is quite a number of them —as have migrated to British Columbia and there engaged in the seal fishery of the North Pacific. Moreover, abounding in great and wide and deep bays, as the Island of Newfoundland does, we cannot but feel a deep interest in the ultimate issue of this controversy as a matter of principle. As a question of internal law, if there be any practical meaning in the term, I fail to comprehend by what perversion or violation of its general principles the claim of the United States can be justified or sustained. The Salisbury- Blaine correspondence, in which the “tacking and filling on the American side disgusted even its own respectable press, has only to be read to convince the rational reader of the hollowness of the connection. It is manifest that the unregulated use of Behring Sea for the capture of seals must lead to the destruction and extinction of a valuable public property, and will be especially damaging to the commercial interests of the United States in their legitimate territories and rights of property in and around that sea. Even in regard to the North Atlantic seal fishery, mainly prosecuted from Newfoundland, it has been found expedient to establish legal restrictions upon the times and methods of its prosecution, so as to prevent reckless destruction and possible extinction” There of course, the seal is of a different character, and is mainly valuable for its oil, and for its skins as leather, not as a very valuable fur as the Pacific seal is, and the number, moreover, is immense and not measurably exhaustible. With the North Pacific seal this is not so, and early extinction must follow the uncontrolled pursuit of the industry which attends its capture.”
[see also Sheffield Independent: Saturday 14th January 189 and Birmingham Daily Post: Saturday 14th January 1893]
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
GRO0254 Hennock: Emily Hetty Sabine Homfray: 1845 – 1922
GRO0747 Hennock: Robert John Pinsent: 1834 – 1893