New-York tribune., 1890-06-12
THE WFOUNDLAND FISHERIES.

Fisheries questions constitute the most COM
plex chapters of modern diplomacy. The con-
troversies which have been waged between the
United States and Great Britain for over
century respecting the North Atlantic fisheries
are grounded upon historical rights ana treaty
concessions involving partition OF empire
Those ancient fishing rights were one OF the
supreme issues which the American negotlators
of the Treaty of Peace after the close OF the
War of 1912 resoutely refused to compromise
or abandon. for they held that the fisheries
had virtually been conquered from the french
by the New-England colonists, and that the
tenancy in common conceded at the close OF
the Revolutionary War was historical Amer-
can right. The controversies between France
and Great Britain over the Newfoundland fish
cries are even older than the questions which
have clouded the relations of Canada and the
Tinted States. The wrangling began with the
discoveries of the Cabots and the competition
between Basque and English fishermen on the
shoals of Newfoundland. The French lost IN
the wars with England all their possessions
except two small islands and their fishing
rights but these concessions, flung by the
vctors to the nation which had been despolled
of its American empire, were embedded IN
treaty law, and there they remain to this day.
A staff correspondent of The TRIBUNE, who
has been dispatched to Newfoundland 1ur
nishes in an opening letter printed on another
mage q historical review of the origin and
grounds of this international dispute, and ex-
nlains the existing status OF the fisheries ne
eotiations While lobster-catching is new
and remunerative form of fishing industry
which did not enter into the original negotia-
tions and treaty concessions, it forms the basis
of the recent modus vivend into which Lord
Salisbury has been entrapped BY French dlplo-
matists more acute in this instance than HIM
self. Our correspondent is fully justified in
his conclusion that the French claim has been
practically conceded by the British Foreign
Office and the principle of divided sovereignty
over the shore where lobster-catching Is most
productive recognized. This modus vlvendl
works very much as the similar arrangement
made by Mr.. Bayard and Mr.. Chamberlain IN
relation to the other fisheries question, with
the important exception that England in this
instance comedies instead of acquiring the prln-
cinle at issue. Lord Salisbury has been placed
at a signal disadvantage in these negotiations
and apparently is in such desperate straits 10
recover his lost ground that he may be COM
pelled to trade off the French rights, recog-
nized in ancient treaties and in the modus VI
yendi, for some compensating concessions IN
another quarter of the world.
The Newfoundlanders are Indifferent to the
bearings of ancient treaties and diplomatic
argument. They are colonists dependent on
their maritime industries, and they are clamor-
GUS in their demands for complete jurisdiction
and sovereignty over their coasts The orig
inal treaty concessions were made for the bene-
fit. not of colonists, but of competing fishermen
sailing the high seas and returning to European
ports. The Newfoundanders now insist that
the necessities and rights of the actual pop
ulation of the island must have precedence over
antiquated treaty clauses and laundering at
tempts of the Foreign Office to reserve prin-
ciples which are expressly conceded. II the
Imperial connection involves surrender OF
their shores and the compromising OF their
rights, they are more than half inclined to
break away from it altogether. 1t is an i'm
portant and interesting international episode
and our correspondent discusses it with lucidity
and vipor