nal shape."

Five days later the Governor of Newfoundland telegraphed to the
Secretary of State:--

"My ministers request that incorrect statement made by Under-secretary
of State for foreign affairs be immediately contradicted, _as the
terms of modus vivendi were not modified in accordance with their
views_. Ministers protested against any claims of French, and desired
time to be changed till January for reasons given; but that was
ignored, and _modus vivendi_ entered into without regard to their
wishes. Ministers much embarrassed by incorrect statement made by
Under-secretary of State."

Of course the Secretary of State supported the statement of Sir James
Ferguson, and refused to correct it. But on page 54 of the case for
the colony, published June, 1890, we find the words:--

"Two facts are placed beyond dispute by the above-quoted
correspondence: (1) that the consent of the 'community' of
Newfoundland to the _modus vivendi_ was not obtained by laying it
before the legislature, which the 'Labouchere' despatch declared to be
the proper action to be taken in such cases; (2) and that even the
government of Newfoundland was not consulted as to the adoption of the
_modus vivendi_ as settled."

The Labouchere despatch alluded to above, and called by the
Newfoundlanders their "Magna Charta," had been sent by the Right Hon.
Henry Labouchere on March 26, 1857. But Mr. Labouchere was not a Tory;
and there is the whole difference. So Newfoundland still has to suffer
for the criminal negligence which British Tories have displayed from
1743 until to-day.

There was one Englishman, and that the Governor of Newfoundland
itself, who had a clear and honorable notion of the imperial
government's duty to its unfortunate colony. Sir G. William des Voeux,
writing from the government House, St. John's, Jan. 14, 1887, to the
Colonial Office in London, after reciting the circumstances, says: "If
this be so, as indeed there are other reasons for believing, I would
respectfully urge that in fairness the heavy resulting loss should
not, or, at all events, not exclusively, fall upon this colony, and
that if in the national interest a right is to be withheld from
Newfoundland which naturally belongs to it, and the possession of
which makes to it all the difference between wealth and penury, there
is involved on the part of the nation a corresponding obligation to
grant compensation of a value equal or nearly equal to that of the
right