undland."

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 documents a very simple issue arose. According to the English
contention their cumulative 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 shore.

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 shore. 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withdrawn from colonial occupation.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 circumstances the theoretical assertion
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 title 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 title of the
settlers to their lands, and brought them within the pale of the
Queen's law.

The French shore 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 th