The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1892-03-11

Prime Minister and his advisers as the
readiest means of rallying the country
about them, and bidding for the plaudits
of the workingmen, who attribute their
falling wages, if not total lack of en-
ployment, TO the workings of the Nc
Kinley tariff.
Ii would be unfair to attribute such
despicable tactics to Lord Salisbury,
were the case against him any less clear.
But the publication of the full text OF
the two months correspondence be-
tween our State Department and the
British Minister at Washington, acting
under Salisburys instructions, does not
leave to Britith diplomacy leg TO stand
upon. In plain English, Lord Salisbury's
position is that Of buccaneer.
The proposed treaty of arbitration pro-
vides that the board of arbitrators shall
meet at Paris within six or eight months
from the exchange of ratifications and
shall then come 10 a conclusion within
ninety days time. Meanwhile Lord
Salisbury coolly proposes that, this coun-
try, having bound itself to await such
decision of its property rights in the
seal herds, those rights shall be utterly
destroyed and all occasion for the meet
ing of the arbitrators done away by the
piratical seizure of the treasure in dis
pute by the Canadian poachers and its
wanton and lawless annihilation by
them.
Last year Lord Salisbury delayed his
agreement to q close season until it was
too late to take effectual measures
against the indiscriminate slaughter of
the breeding animals. This year he re-
fuses any renewal of the modus vivendi,
which means that the fleet of t25 vessels
already under way for the Pribyloff
Rookeries, 10y unmanly slaughter, greed
and rapine will in one short season prac-
tically eXterminate the 500,0 seals
which are all that now remain alive.
Salisbury has no very warm interest
in Canadian profits in this matter. 1t is
the appeal the Conservative party must
soon make to English voters of which he
is thinking. But as against the Premier's
arrogant attitude this country has more
than one form of defense that would
prove effectual.
If the bonding privilege now enjoyed
were revoked and the railroads of the
Dominion left to find their outlet to the
sea as best they could during the five
months in which The mouth of the st.
Lawrence is frozen and in which they
now make their ports in American har-
bors, q blow so vital would be lev
eled at Canadian interests that, for the
restoration of TINS rtransit trade, duty
free, the annual average of which for
the five years ending with 1886 was
$47, 1000 600, Canada would go on her
knees begging leave to make restitution
for this summers ruthless ravages.
If objection be taken TO this course by
the New England railroads, which would
lose, temporarily at least, the profits of
handling Canadian products, the Presi-
dent has it within his option to send to
Behring Sea this summer strong fleet
of men-of-war and revenue cutters to act
as police force and capture poachers
wherever they can be found.
This does not mean war with Great
Britain over the seals. That country
has denied in explicit terms her respon-
sibility for the unlawful acts of her seal
poachers, and has thus put it out of her
power to send war vessels TO pro-
tect them. ANY objection she may
make to our seizing Canadian seal pirates
she will be obliged to make through the
law courts. Great Britain kept off the
sealing grounds for hundreds of years
while Russia maintained the fisheries,
and except in piratical guise she will
keep off now.
Our position is absolutely impregua-
BILE, and this country must and will
protect its own.
-e
(THc Nc cKiUIC1y IU1gl 1pUs fhp hest prO1Oct