position was vividly and faithfully stated by Sir Charles Dilke, in a
passage which may be quoted in full:

"Instead of protecting British fishermen in the prosecution of their
lawful avocation, and resisting the new claim of the French, our
Government, after failing to enforce the claim of the French, tried to
go to arbitration upon it before a Court in which the best known
personage was to have been M. de Martens, the hereditary librarian of
the Russian Foreign Office, whose opinion on such points was hardly
likely to be impartial. Luckily, the French added a condition, the
enormity of which was such that the arbitration has never taken place,
and it may be hoped now never will.

"While British officers were backed up by the Government in most
arbitrary action on behalf of the French and against the colonists,
the theory continued to be that the French pretensions were disputed
by us. At the end of 1889 the Home Government sent for the Prime
Minister of Newfoundland, who came to England in 1890. A _modus
vivendi_ was agreed to preserving such British lobster factories as
existed, and the French Government agreeing that they would undertake
to grant no new lobster-fishing concessions 'on fishing grounds
occupied by British subjects,' whatever that might mean. But the
limitation was afterwards explained away, and the _modus vivendi_
stated to mean the _status quo_. The Colonial Government strongly
protested against the _modus vivendi_, as a virtual admission of a
concurrent right of lobster fishing prejudicial to the position of
Newfoundland in future negotiation; and there can be no doubt that the
adoption of the _modus vivendi_ by the British Government without
previous reference to the colony, and against its wish, was a
violation of the principle laid down by the then Mr Labouchere, when
Secretary of State in 1857, and by Lord Palmerston. Our Government
deny this, because they expressly reserved all questions of principle
and right in the agreement with the French, and that is so, of course;
but there can be no doubt about the effect of what they did.

"By an answer given by an Under-Secretary of State in the House of
Commons, the views of the Newfoundland Government were misrepresented,
it being stated that they 'were consulted as to the terms of the
_modus vivendi_, which was modified to some extent to meet their
views, although concluded without reference to them in its final
shape'; but the Newfoundland Gove