Part 7

It was easy enough for the most cowardly man, in Lord Robert Cecil's position, to use such words, even were he naught more than a lath painted over to imitate steel. Even if England is ruined, he is safe. But it was quite another matter when, sixteen years later, the poor Newfoundlander applied to him and Disraeli-Beaconsfield for the right to build a railroad.

Russia had just declared her intention of demolishing the last unpleasant clause in the treaty forced upon her by France and England at the close of the Crimean War; and Russia was a more dangerous foe than the Northern States. And the story of the Beaconsfield-Salisbury connection with that affair excited the laughter of all other diplomatists in Europe.

They pretended to have brought peace with honor from the Conference of Berlin. But what did the rest of Europe think about it?

It made the Christian populations of the South believe that Russia was their especial friend, and their enemies were England and the unspeakable Turk; it strengthened among the Greeks the impression already made by Palmerston's action in the Don Pacifico case,--that France was their friend, and England their enemy; and it created everywhere the impression that the Congress was a theatrical piece of business, merely enacted as a pageant on the Berlin stage.

England has not yet paid the full penalty of her stupid acquiescence in the rule of Disraeli and Salisbury; and it will cost her yet far more than she paid for the results of Tory infamy and Whig senility in the "Alabama" business, for she has enemies to deal with who are far less generous and far slyer than the people of the United States. It was under the Beaconsfield-Salisbury cabinet that Sir Bartle Frere made that infamous declaration of war against Cetewayo which led to the defeat of Lord Chelmsford's British troops by a lot of half-naked savages. It was under this ministry that the stupid expedition to Afghanistan led to the massacre of Sir Louis Cavagnari and the members of his staff. It was under this ministry that the soul-stirring anthem of Thompson,

"When Britain first at Heaven's command,"

was superseded by the rant of the Tory street-walker,--

"We don't want to fight; But, by jingo, if we do, We've got the ships, we've got the men, We've got the money, too."

And the manner in which the government used the ships, the men, and the money, proved that there was one thing needful which the Jingoes had not got; and that is manhood.

To this Jingo ministry it was, then, that Sir William V. Whiteway had to apply for the imperial sanction to the railway; and sanction was refused. For what reason? The pretended reason was that the western terminus of the line at Bay St. George would be on that part of the coast affected by the French treaty rights. It may be open to doubt whether the French claims which interfered with the establishment of a railroad terminus at Bay St. George were just or not; but there is not the slightest doubt that Lord Palmerston, in his note of July 10, 1838, to Count Sebastiani, had maintained that they were not justified, and that the Tories were and are of the same opinion.

But when a whole colony of Englishmen were wronged according to the statements both of Palmerston and Salisbury, the Beaconsfield-Salisbury administration dare not maintain the rights of these Englishmen against the French. That is the courage and the bravery of British Jingoism, which bullies weak China and little Greece in support of a Sir John Bowring or Don Pacifico, but dares not maintain an Englishman's rights against the French republic.

The question might easily have been settled without offending France by making Port aux Basques, which is less than eighty miles south-west of Bay St. George and beyond the French treaty limits, the terminus of the line.

There must, then, have been some concealed reason behind the pretended one. It is absolutely certain that there were two influences at work in London which were directly antagonistic to the true interest both of Great Britain and Newfoundland. One was that of the Canadian party, who are determined to boycott every scheme that would make any Newfoundland port a rival of Halifax. The other is the British, or mercantile, party, who for two hundred years past have consistently and successfully opposed the introduction of any industry into the island that would enable the fishermen to escape from their present bondage.

If either Beaconsfield or Salisbury had really cared for England's interests, they must have foreseen that, even if they were willing to sacrifice Newfoundland, the position they took in this matter must in the highest degree be damaging to the European prestige of Great Britain. When republican France was threatened by all the tyrants of Europe, the terrible Danton said, "Il nous faut de l'audace, et encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace." To-day the Frenchman requires no Danton to teach him the lesson; for the extraordinary confession of weakness made by the Jingo government of 1878 in refusing to sanction a line that could have been built without touching the French shore question at all was a direct encouragement to the French to persevere in that policy which they have since so successfully pursued in Madagascar, in Siam, in Africa, and in Newfoundland.

No matter whether the French claims in Newfoundland be right or wrong, the Beaconsfield-Salisbury government have practically surrendered the matter; and the only thing left for the British government is to compensate Newfoundland for its loss, as America was compensated for the "Alabama" damages. But they will not do it.

Mr. Whiteway had to find another means of helping the colony. He was obliged to choose between two alternatives,--either to build no railway at all or only one which would avoid the very districts which, for the benefit of the settler, ought to opened for settlement.

So the line to Harbor Grace was built. But even this the wealthy British did not build. It was left to an American syndicate. P.T. McG., writing of this line to the New York Weekly Post of Jan. 2, 1895, says, "The contract was given to an enterprising Yankee, who built a few miles, swindled the shareholders, fleeced the colony, and then decamped, leaving as a legacy an unfinished road, an interminable lawsuit, and a damaged colonial credit."

I happen to know another side of the question; and it does not become the Englishmen interested in that railway matter to talk of "Yankee swindlers."

When Sir Robert Thorburn became Premier of Newfoundland, he took the first step necessary to make this line of some value to the tax-payers by extending it twenty-seven miles to Placentia, the old French "La Plaisance." This line was of immense value to St. John's, because it gave the people of that city a convenient winter harbor which is always open, by which they have an easy communication with Canada and the United States; and I hope the time will soon come when we shall have steamers running from Boston, touching at the French Island of St. Pierre, and then going to Placentia.

What were the English diplomatists doing meanwhile? In 1890 they were arranging a modus vivendi with the French government about the lobster fisheries. The Tories were in power, and Sir James Ferguson was the Under-secretary of State. This gentleman's sentiments towards the United States have been recorded by the Hon. James G. Blaine. In his "Twenty Years of Congress," Vol. II., page 481, foot-note, he writes: Sir James Ferguson declared in the House of Commons, March 14, 1864, that "wholesale peculations and robberies have been perpetrated under the form of war by the generals of the Federal States; and worse horrors than, I believe, have ever in the present century disgraced European armies have been perpetrated under the eyes of the Federal government, and yet remain unpunished. These things are as notorious as the proceedings of a government which seems anxious to rival one despotic and irresponsible power of Europe in its contempt for the public opinion of mankind." These words need no commentary to-day. They show us pretty clearly the character of the man who then spoke them, and will prepare us for his treatment of the Newfoundland question. On March 20, 1890, he made the following statement in the House of Commons:--

"The Newfoundland government was consulted as to the terms of the modus vivendi, which was modified to some extent to meet their views; but it was necessary to conclude it without referring it to them in its final 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 withheld."

Nothing can be fairer than that, and it is written by the trusted official of the British government.